


Unstoppable Forces

by wecara



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Based off of art (see the summary!!), Dimension Travel, Family, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Laith, Lance and Keith have a son, M/M, Pidge is probably a cryptid, Time Travel, uhh its really complicated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-06-25 07:38:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15636213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wecara/pseuds/wecara
Summary: Laith Kogane-McClain has two genius fathers who one day went missing along with their lions, gone as if they’d never been there in the first place. It’s been almost two years since then, and when he gets a signal indicating the presence of his parents halfway across the universe, Laith follows it without a second thought. This proves to be a mistake, however, because now he’s stuck in a reality that’s over a decade in time behind his own with no way to get back.Team Voltron has just lost their home for the past year, the Castle of Lions, and without a wormhole it’s slow going back to Earth, stopping on unfamiliar planets for rest and sometimes torment from alien creatures. But now Lance and Keith apparently have a kid with what looks to be a sixth Voltron lion, telling them that the Galra were just the last line of defense against a reality destroying creature. With Lotor gone, there’s no way to stop it. A Beast is coming.And that’s just the beginning.BASED OFF OF ART BY THE WONDERFUL @aku-usagi ON TUMBLR!! Here's the post:http://aku-usagi.tumblr.com/post/170542417405/laith-mckogane-idk-how-this-happened-and-why





	1. Static Screens

**Author's Note:**

> HIII so this fic has been brewing in my head for a while, and I'm super excited about it. I'm hoping to have more regular updates than my other fics have had (sorry) and I'm really excited for it!!  
> BIG shoutout to my beta, Mila (i love u) for agreeing to help me on this journey.  
> I hope you guys like it!!  
> and to reiterate, this is based off of the art by @aku-usagi on tumblr, it's so pretty and amazing and they're one of my favorite artists EVER. It was such an honor to write about their character, and I hope they enjoy the way I'm borrowing him!! GO THANK THEM FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL ART!!!  
> http://aku-usagi.tumblr.com/post/170542417405/laith-mckogane-idk-how-this-happened-and-why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Static on the radio / Don't stay late / Come home safe / You can never tell what waits for you / You knew the risks / You took the chance / Now the ones you left behind are gone"  
> -Static by Planet P Project

 

The stars and planets blur together in creamy streaks of white, blue, and purple, as indistinguishable as the strokes of paint in Van Gogh’s  _ Starry Night.  _ Now, whether the galaxy’s newfound abstractness stems from the speed at which Iris hurtles them through space or the hot tears stinging Laith’s eyes and obstructing his vision is anyone’s guess. His hands grip Iris’s controls tight enough to make the tendons of his knuckles stick up. He grits his teeth against the sobs threatening to spring past his lips at every thought of them—of Dad and Papa. 

Two years. 

It’s been two years since Papa ruffled his hair and Dad pinched his cheek playfully in their signature goodbyes before climbing into their Lions and dissolving into the unforgiving void of space. Laith  _ knows  _ that they didn’t just leave him. The way they’d parted ways— _ not  _ for the last time, he reminds himself painfully—had felt more like ‘going for a quick morning trip to the grocery store’ than ‘we’re fucking off forever, see you in the next life.’ It was definitely something about that stupid Beast, Laith is sure of it. His fathers had probably left thinking they were going on another routine check of all the weak patches of space only to get just a  _ little  _ too close or step a  _ little  _ too far, and just like that, they were gone. 

Laith had been twelve. 

Now he’s creeping up on fifteen.

Two years. 

It’s taken two years before his fathers managed to make some sort of contact, and now all Laith can do is pray that he and Iris aren’t too late. 

Iris’s lithe robotic body weaves through space like an eel weaves through water. She darts and she curves and she twirls, chasing the signal from Laith’s parents with just as much urgency and desperation as he needs. She misses her parents, too. 

For a ride nearly halfway across the known universe, Iris must break some sort of record with the speed at which she arrives; the tears have barely dried from Laith’s cheeks when she slows her breakneck pace into a smooth and steady halt.

It’s… unnerving, to say the least. The sight before him has been his parents’ everyday since the end of the war, a year or two before Laith was born. He’s seen hundreds of scans, photos, computerized 3D models, and even Papa’s hand-drawn conceptual paintings, but it still never ceases to take his breath away and put a twist in his gut at the same time. 

This is what it looks like to be facing a piece of reality rubbed so raw that it’s eroded into a mere tissue paper sculpture of itself. The sky before him shimmers and stutters, like curling waves of heat spilling from sun-warmed asphalt. A faint glow the color of something he can’t quite name seems to swell behind each distorted star, and the pinpricks of odd light swarm in a dizzying dance that reminds Laith of static. Dad had always thought them more like the sparks that float away when a campfire log loses its structural integrity and collapses in a warm orange avalanche. 

Laith doesn’t like that analogy much anymore. It reminds him too much of home. It reminds him that these sparks—this static—had become his parents’ home when they left. He doesn’t want the sight of stars through a broken, bubbling scope to be their last campfire sparks.

He looks down at the sensor in the corner of his screen, just to make sure. If he’s going to dive headfirst into the abyss that stole his family, he’d better make sure it’s the right one. 

Of course it’s the right one. Iris wouldn’t have sprinted for her fucking life if it wasn’t towards the finish line. 

“Well,” Laith says, and his voice sounds gravelly from the strain of his tears. “It’s now or never. You ready, ‘Ris?” He pets his Lion’s dash soothingly, marveling in the excited and antsy vibrations that rumble through his fingertips and penetrate his mind. Iris is  _ beyond  _ ready. Laith laughs a laugh that’s more of just a glorified exhale through his nose before settling back into Iris’s pilot chair.

“Alright, let’s go get our parents.”

◊◊◊

Coran wishes that the alert for the presence a  _ sixth  _ Voltron lion flashing across his portable screen had been the strangest thing that happened to him that day. Unfortunately, after a run-in with some overly friendly and explosive—quite literally  _ explosive,  _ they’d almost singed his mustache clean off—forest natives and a handful of miscommunication problems that landed him with his hands tied to his ankles being roasted over the culture’s ritualistic Ruby Flame, he’s gotta say it’s a solid tie at best.

“Princess?” he says, standing from his seat in Blue’s cockpit. Romelle looks up from across the way, fear flitting through her eyes and no doubt trying to remember every possible alien language in which she knows how to say ‘fuck that.’

“Yes, Coran? What is it?” Allura responds, then winces at the harshness of her tone. These past couple weeks have been rough without the Castle of Lions—without her home. She misses the feeling of being able to walk and walk and walk and never be bothered by anyone, to get some headspace. She’s been finding herself to be surprisingly irritable towards the other members of her team, which isn’t fair of her—she  _ knows  _ that. It’s just… difficult.

“It appears that a sixth Voltron lion and its paladin are aimlessly floating through space just a few ticks towards the Stryollene System from our direction.” Coran says, and he sounds tired. Like maybe he was just expecting as much to happen today.

“ _ What?! _ ” Allura practically shrieks. 

“Woah, you alright Princess?” Hunk’s panicky voice crackles through the comms. Allura grits her teeth, feeling her face begin to pale and sweat start to sheen on her forehead. 

“What do you mean,  _ a sixth Voltron lion? _ ” The last time they ran into a ship that had resembled Voltron, it was Lotor and it took away the last of her Altean heritage in a massive reality-saving explosion of infinite mass. Forgive her for being a little anxious. 

“I’ve picked up a signature that’s identical to one of our lions, down to the very magic that runs through your blood. It was definitely made by King Alfor.” Coran responds, punching furiously at the portable in his hands, trying to get a more accurate scan. He can’t believe it either, but the readings don’t lie. 

“Allura, what’s going on?” Shiro asks, and Allura wrenches the controls sideways, guiding Blue towards the signal Coran pings onto her dash. 

“Change of plans, paladins. Follow me, Coran thinks he’s picked up on something but I don’t quite believe it.” She doesn’t  _ want  _ to believe it. Because if this truly is one of her father’s lions, then he’d been lying the entire time. If this truly is a lion of Voltron, well, Allura doesn’t know what she’ll do. Her paladins’ sounds of confusion bubble over the comms, but she tunes them out, heart racing. 

“Alright, you’re the boss,” Lance says and Red veers off course, chasing after Blue. 

“Did she say something about a  _ sixth  _ lion? Am I the only one who heard that?” Hunk asks. 

“No, I heard it too. I just don’t understand it,” Pidge responds, and the others sigh in confused affirmation. Stars whiz by in white streaks, but Allura’s eyes remain trained on the pinging signal lock in front of her. 

They get closer, and Allura holds her breath. The object in question will be visible soon, and if it’s a lion—

“What the fuck?” Keith breathes. Black tails Blue closely, and peering over her shoulder he can see a small mechanical lion, about a head and a half shorter than Red. It’s painted a vibrant purple, and its lights are out, indicating a complete loss of power. 

“A  _ purple lion?! _ ” Lance shrieks incredulously. Allura’s ears feel like they’ve been filled with cotton as she punches at Blue’s controls before undoing the harness straps and sprinting out of her lion’s jaws. 

“Coran, I put Blue into autopilot. I’m going to go check this out,” she barks, jumping into space and activating her armor’s jetpack.

“Wait, princess! It could be dangerous! Let’s make a plan before we—”

“My plan is to find out why there is a Voltron lion that no one has ever heard of floating idly through space, Keith. Entering now,” Allura’s voice shakes, but she keeps her attention trained firmly on the small purple lion’s open jaw. She lands, and while it’s smaller than she’s used to, the uncanny familiarity of the architecture sends a sick shooting sensation down her spine and into her belly. Lotor’s ship had been a combination of their own visions in design, but this is undeniably Altean. Undeniably her father’s work. Undeniably the exact thing she’d been fearing. 

She clambors up into the cockpit, her breath coming out in thin, shaky gasps. The interior is identical to any of the other lions, though a bit more tight to accommodate for the lion’s exterior size difference. The controls and decorations are a faint purple color, though it’s more vibrant than the ultraviolet of Black’s. The pilot’s chair is still and empty. 

“It’s empty, but it’s identical to one of ours. I don’t—” Allura stops short as she walks closer towards the chair. She had initially presumed it to be empty, but now that she’s up closer she can see the small, unconscious form of a figure in purple paladin armor. They look to be Pidge’s size, but their shoulders are broader and their limbs are thicker with a touch more muscle definition than the Green paladin. 

“There’s… there’s a child,” her voice is breathy with shock. “Or, a small person. Seemingly human. Sitting in the pilot’s chair. They’re breathing, and have paladin armor, but…  _ how? _ ”

“Let’s tow them to the nearest planet, that way we can all check this out and make a plan. Allura, does that sound good?” Shiro says soothingly, and Allura nods numbly before remembering he can’t hear that. She gives him a vague “yeah” then turns away from the tiny pilot and leaps out of the lion’s mouth. 

Dragging a prone lion down to a planet with gravity is harder than they’d expected, but they manage to land the purple lion smoothly by dropping onto a flat expanse of yellowed plains. The planet has breathable air and the sky is a vivid cerulean when they land, the sun just starting to rise and cast shadows over the golden grass. 

Allura and Keith walk into the purple lion’s jaws and return with Keith carrying a limp young boy in purple paladin armor. Lance is by his side in an instant, guiding him towards the opened healing pod they’d brought down from the black lion—the same one they’d used to stabilize Shiro when his soul was still settling into the clone body. 

Allura had said there was a child but he wasn’t expecting, well,  _ this.  _ The boy is barely Pidge’s size, he looks small and fragile in Keith’s strong grip (stupid space time warp, cheating and giving him that extra bulk). Lance can’t see his face through the purple helmet, but for some reason a strong urge to  _ protect him  _ courses through his veins with each glance. What is a kid doing floating alone in a lost Voltron lion? Keith lowers the kid into the pod while Lance gently reaches under the helmet and—yep, there’s the latch, in the exact same place as their own helmets—it comes off of his head smoothly. Lance thought the strange protectiveness was strong before, but upon seeing the small pilot’s face it comes flooding through his heart with an intensity that leaves him staggering. 

His skin is just a few shades darker than Keith’s, but not quite as golden brown as Lance’s—he’s like the perfect middle ground. He has long eyelashes and thick eyebrows, his jaw is square and sturdy despite his seemingly young age. Faint freckles dash across his cheeks and button nose, and he has a thick mop of espresso brown hair just a few shades up from obsidian. It has a slight wave to it, just adding to his childlike boyishness which makes Lance’s heart pang with worry once again about what a  _ little human kid  _ is doing so far away from Earth. 

Hunk and Pidge are eager to scope out the technology and had quickly volunteered to work on getting the purple lion up and running again once they got the small pilot out of his chair, and Krolia had taken Romelle to start unpacking their things to camp for the night, leaving Lance, Keith, Shiro, Coran, and Allura alone and staring as the pod door closes. Lance can’t tear his eyes away from the tranquil sleeping face of the mysterious kid. 

“We should—” Keith clears his throat, his voice sounds all  _ wrong.  _ There’s a strange tightness to it that Lance has never heard before. “We should go help Romelle and Krolia,” he finishes, and starts walking towards the lions. Lance doesn’t miss the way he’d had to force himself to turn away, like he’s just as reluctant to leave as Lance is. 

“That’s a good idea, Lance. Coran will go over the data we can collect while you’re working, then we can get the team together once you’re done and announce his findings.” Shiro nudges Lance’s shoulder gently, snapping him out of his stupor. 

“Right, yeah, okay,” the Red paladin responds automatically, surprised to find his own voice just as strained as Keith’s had been. Shiro smiles warmly.

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” he says, and Lance nods, eyes still trained on the boy. Then he wordlessly backs away, stealing one last glance before his legs are taking him away towards Red. He tries not to think about how each step that he takes away from the pod feels like a knife to the gut. 

“They seem pretty shaken by all this,” Allura says once Lance is out of earshot, and Shiro nods. “I mean, I am too. I have a thousand questions and no answers and it’s driving me a little bit mad.” Shiro can’t help but agree. Never in his wildest dreams would he have predicted finding another lion in his lifetime, let alone a lion piloted by a child that bears a striking resemblance to Keith and Lance. Judging by the two paladins’ reactions he isn’t the only one that noticed the similarities. Do they have a long lost shared relative? After Keith finding his Galra mom on a mission by chance, Shiro wouldn’t be surprised. 

“In King Groggery’s name…” Coran startles Shiro from his thoughts, and he turns to see the ginger-haired Altean bent over the pod, numbers and symbols flashing across the screen on top of it. His eyes are bugging out of his head, mouth slack with shock. 

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asks quickly, anxiety overtaking the once steady thrum of his heartbeat and bringing it up in a roaring accelerando. Coran looks up from the screen, mouth moving silently like he’s still chewing on the words, trying to get them out but failing to do so. 

“It’s just—” he finally says, but in that instant Lance and Keith return, breathing heavily as if they’ve been running a marathon.

“We finished unpacking,” Lance announces between heavy breaths, “what’s the scoop on purple?”  

“That was fast,” Allura remarks. Indeed, even with Krolia and Romelle giving their camp setup a headstart, the boys had completed it in record time. Maybe they’re more anxious about the boy than Shiro initially guessed. 

As if in answer to Lance’s question, the pod’s glass lid hisses open and the boy’s eyelids flutter. He groans emphatically, propping himself up and rubbing his face just as Romelle and Krolia catch up with the group. Shiro absentmindedly holds his arm out and pushes against Allura, guiding her a few steps away from the boy in caution. Sure, he’s just a little kid, but he’s also apparently an unknown sort of paladin. It’s unlikely, but he could be dangerous. 

The boy finally opens his eyes sleepily, and they’re a cool, striking violet almost identical to his lion. Lance and Keith hold their breaths as he gazes blearily at the group huddled around him, then a confused sort of comprehension washes over him. 

“Grandma K? Aunt Romelle? What’s going on?” he asks tiredly. His voice sounds small and youthful, it obviously hasn’t changed yet. Lance almost gasps as the protective feeling surges through him with renewed force—it almost hurts, like a pressure against his sternum, how much he  _ needs  _ this kid to be okay. 

“ _ Aunt?! _ ” Romelle gasps.

“Grandma?” Krolia repeats. 

Then the boy’s eyes land on Lance and Keith, and it’s like something in him shifts completely. His shoulders tense up, and his face twists from sleepy confusion into sheer relief, joy, and excitement. His mouth drops open and his brilliant purple eyes glitter with tears. It makes Lance want to cry right along with him. 

“ _ Papa! _ ” the boy’s voice cracks at the second syllable, and he’s leaping up from the pod and sprinting the few steps towards the pair, jumping up and throwing his arms around their waists and crying openly before either of them can react. Lance bends over slightly, returning the embrace out of instinct. Keith is slower to react, face turning to Lance with confusion flitting across his features. Lance shrugs, and Keith lets out a breath before awkwardly patting the boy’s armored shoulder. The kid’s body shakes with sobs and he buries his face deeper into Lance’s chest, his fingers dig into Keith’s side almost painfully tight.

“Dad, Papa, I thought—everyone said you were gone, I’m so—” his voice is thick and muffled by how tightly he holds onto them, and he cuts off with a hiccup before continuing to cry. Lance looks up at Coran, a cry for help, but he looks like he’s been struck by lightning. Shiro and Allura are equally as unhelpful, gaping at them like they just said they want to bang Haggar. Finally Lance clears his throat awkwardly, untangling himself from the boy’s grip so he can get a good look at his face. He holds him at arm’s length, watching as the kid wipes at his face with his gloved hands and gasps shallowly, trying to calm himself down. 

“Uh, hey buddy! You okay?” he asks, cringing at the bluntness. The kid shivers, still trying to steady his stuttered breathing, then nods. Lance lets out a whoosh of air, preparing his next words carefully. “That’s good, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Lance, and the grumpy-looking one is Keith. I think you might’ve mistaken us for your uh,” Lance swallows as the boy’s head whips up, confusion and hurt dancing across his puffy red eyes, “your parents.” The look the boy wears is like hot knives to Lance’s heart, he just wants to take it all back and pretend to be whatever he thought Lance was, if only to stop him from looking so  _ pained.  _

“No, wait, you’re not…?” he trails off, looking between Keith and Lance rapidly. “What do you mean? Lance and Keith  _ are  _ my parents. How could you not be? I followed your signal through the reality static, why aren’t you them?” Lance doesn’t quite know what to say to that. Partially because he doesn’t understand half the logic he just used with the confidence of someone who knows what they’re talking about, and partially because how can he explain that Lance and Keith  _ aren’t  _ Lance and Keith? The boy doesn’t look quite so hurt anymore, it’s morphed into distrustful scrutiny. His eyes narrow and he leans forward suddenly, reaching for Lance’s face. The Red paladin allows it without question when he grips Lance’s jaw with one hand, turning it, and uses the other to push the hair behind Lance’s ear away, searching for something. 

The boy leaps away from Lance like he’s been burned. 

“You’re not my Papa,” he says breathlessly.

“About that,” Coran pipes up, his gloved hands framing the panel that holds all the data he’d collected from the boy’s time in the pod. “I was just about to tell Shiro when he woke up, but this boy… He shares your and Keith’s DNA.”

“So he  _ is  _ your son?!” Romelle squeaks.

“Maybe not in this reality, but in another yes,” Coran responds. 

“I’m in another  _ reality?! _ ” the boy puts his hand up to his hair and tangles his fingers through the front in a familiar frustrated gesture—one Lance has seen Keith do on several occasions. He stumbles backwards, his legs hitting the pod and sending him sprawling back down into it with a yelp. He leaps back up in a flash, panic clear on his face. “Holy shit, I’m in another reality, how—where’s Iris?” he sputters, eyes scanning the scene in front of him.

“You mean your little lion cub?” Allura asks, finally speaking up for the first time in what felt like forever. “We found it—along with you—just floating through space. It wasn’t working properly, so our friends are trying to get it up and running again.”

“Which friends? Is it Hunk and Pidge?” the boy asks.  _ How  _ does he know them so well yet not at all?

“Yes…” Allura draws the word out, confused, and the boy slumps his shoulders in relief. 

“Oh, okay. That’s fine. I trust them.”

“Can I be the first to ask  _ what the fuck is going on? _ ” Keith says exasperatedly from behind Lance, who nods, looking to Shiro.

“Language Keith—but I’m wondering the same thing. Would you mind explaining this, uh, static reality you were talking about earlier?” Shiro looks like he’s grasping at straws, trying to think of something to say that won’t upset the boy further. Thankfully it seems to do the trick, because the dark haired boy sighs heavily and looks at the ground.

“Okay, let me try to explain everything. I’m sort of just as confused as you are.”

Romelle excuses herself to go grab Pidge and Hunk so the boy doesn’t have to explain anything twice, and the group is left in a tense, palpable silence. The boy is still recovering from the breakdown before, which makes Lance’s heart ache. He must be feeling so lost and confused and hurt, and to have that joy sparkle up in his eyes only to have it ripped away again must only make it worse than if he’d never seen them at all. 

“Hey,” the word is out of Lance’s mouth before his brain can catch up and reign it in. The boy looks up from the grassy ground, vibrant irises scorching through him. “I know we’re not… I mean, we don’t… I know we aren’t who you thought we were, but um, I was just wondering,” Lance is already trying to turn the words around, his mind working overdrive to try and reverse the dumb shit his heart is dying to release, and it makes his sentences clumsy and lopsided. Finally he just sighs and holds his arms out tentatively, his brain’s battle against his heart lost long ago. “Do you want a hug?” 

The boy recoils a bit, looking for a split second like he’s about to shout or cry or something in between, and Lance’s already precarious resolve starts to crumble. But then, after a momentary debate that takes place entirely in the boy’s head, he nods and walks carefully back towards Lance. The Red paladin meets him in the middle, folding the kid into his arms like he’s done it a million times before. The boy, after a few moments of stiffness, sags against Lance like he’s been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and can finally let it all go. Lance just holds on tighter. 

Keith keeps his distance from the goey charade, though his instincts are  _ for whatever reason  _ telling him to get over there and join Lance in wrapping the kid up in his arms, petting his hair and telling him it’s alright. It must be some weird sort of inter-reality paternal instincts that are out of Keith’s control. He doesn’t like not being in control.

Hunk and Pidge come bounding up in that moment, shortly followed by Romelle, and the boy pulls back from Lance’s embrace and moves over to the pod once more. Keith doesn’t miss the way the Red paladin’s touch lingers on the boy’s shoulders; the way he leans forwards slightly, chasing after the kid as if Lance is the one in need of comfort. 

“Hey, you’re awake,” Hunk says carefully in way of greeting. Pidge just nods and gives him a little wave, which the boy returns.

“Alright now that everyone’s here, why don’t you start from the top?” Keith encourages, and the boy takes a deep breath, plopping himself down onto the pod like he’s settling in for a movie.

“Okay. So, my name is Laith, and my parents are Keith and Lance Kogane-McClain.”

“Lance and Keith are your  _ parents?! _ ” Hunk shouts, looking to Lance as if he’s been stabbed, “Why didn’t you  _ tell  _ me you had a kid?! HOW DO YOU HAVE A KID?” 

“Hunk, chill out! Let him finish!” Lance responds, and the boy—Laith—looks between the two of them cautiously.

“Should I…?” he asks, wringing his hands awkwardly.

“Please, continue. We won’t interrupt again,” Shiro says, sending a pointed glare to Lance and Hunk, which Lance thinks is unfair. He hadn’t done anything wrong, it’s not  _ his  _ fault Hunk is a drama queen. 

“Okay,” Laith sounds extremely wary, but goes on anyways. “As I was saying, you two are my parents. Except in my reality, the war has been over for seventeen years. All of you guys are retired, and happy, and it’s really peaceful.”

Keith tries to imagine a world without the Galra, without any of the constant fighting and heartache and missing home. He doesn’t necessarily miss  _ home,  _ more just the idea of it. Hearing that the idea actually could exist is slightly unsettling. Keith’s entire life has been a war against something. First it was his war against his emotions, rubbed raw by the absence of his parents and therefore impossible to touch without hurting. Then it was the war with his temper in the Garrison, the battles fought less through the punches he delivered and more through the disappointed yet hopeful glimmer in Shiro’s eyes against his own hopeless knowledge that Keith  _ isn’t as good as Shiro thinks he is.  _ The last war before this one had been harder to fight, and to this day Keith is still unsure if he even won it. This being because he never found out who or what he was actually fighting. After Shiro was taken away, Keith didn’t know who to blame. He couldn’t very well shake his fists and scream at the stars, nor could he message Shiro and tell him how  _ fucking stupid  _ he was. All he could do was exist. 

Even that task had seemed impossible to shoulder sometimes. 

Now they’re on their way back to Earth, which had sounded like a rest of some sort at first, but what if it just leads to more wars? More battles that Keith must be prepared to lose? More ways this newfound family of his could get hurt? After spending so long focusing solely on the pessimistic—and therefore safer, more realistic—side of things, a future that’s bright and filled with love and family and peace just sounds like a load of garbage. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

“I mean, it would be, but for about five years there have been… problems.” Laith says, and yep, there’s the kicker Keith had been waiting for. The ‘everything was fine  _ until. _ ’ Keith has learned to expect an  _ until.  _ “My dads have been studying it, but there haven’t been conclusive results. Basically all we know is that there are these anomalies in matter and time that create strange patches and sometimes holes in the fabric of our reality. We think that something is punching through our reality, trying to get out into the quintessence field in hopes of using it to hop into other realities. We call it the Beast. A little while back, Dad and Papa—uh, you guys—went out to investigate one of the holes and haven’t come back yet. I was chasing a signal that I thought had been sent out by them when I passed out, and ended up here.” Laith spreads his hands out when he’s done, and Keith realizes with an amused sort of warmth that his animated way of talking with his whole body resembles Lance. Maybe he really  _ is  _ their kid?

A million questions still swarm through his head. Who is Iris? Who made her? Why in Laith’s reality were he and Lance in love? What exactly is the Beast and what is it’s motive? Is it dangerous to their reality too? How did Laith manage to get here but the Beast hasn’t managed to do much more than ruin the structural integrity of reality? And seriously, how the  _ fuck  _ had he and Lance created a  _ child _ ? 

“Okay, that clears some stuff up, but I’m pretty sure we all still have a lot of questions,” Keith says. “Maybe we can go over it in the morning? It’s getting dark, and I think we could all use some sleep.” At the mention of sleep, Laith seems to wilt a little, and Keith notices for the first time the dark circles ornamenting his eyes. Sure, he’d passed out in the pod and had been out for who knows how long beforehand, but traveling through realities must’ve done a number on him. 

“Alright, Laith can sleep in Green with me, I don’t have any passengers tonight,” Pidge says, but Laith stiffens uncomfortably.

“Actually, I would prefer if I could sleep in Iris, if that’s alright? I want to make sure she’s okay and um…” Laith fiddles with the hair at the base of his neck, a nervous tick that he must’ve inherited from Keith. “I would just be a little more comfortable with someone that I recognize. Even if I do have all of you in  _ my  _ reality, it’s just—I’d feel better with Iris.”

Keith frowns. Iris is obviously the name of his purple lion cub, and as far as he knows she still isn’t up and running. It’s a difficult situation. He’s extremely empathetic to what Laith is feeling, but as the leader he can’t leave this unfamiliar person alone with full access a new mysterious Voltron lion—no matter how young or apparently related to him he is. 

“I understand, but keep in mind that we’ve just met you. We have to keep ourselves and our lions safe from outside threats. I have a feeling that we can trust you, but I can’t comfortably do that without knowing more about you.” Keith explains, and a flash of defiance glitters across the boy’s violet irises. He opens his mouth to argue, but Lance cuts in.

“Keith, what if… what if I stayed with Laith in Iris?” he asks tentatively. “I mean, it would give more room for us to spread out the passengers, and I don’t mind keeping watch over him.” Keith looks between the Red paladin and Laith, deep in thought. If Laith is anything like Keith, he isn’t going to settle for doing something he doesn’t want to without a fight. The way he’d been ready for an argument when Keith first shut down the idea of sleeping in Iris only served to prove that theory. Keith knows he can trust Lance, and reasons that Laith would be less likely to do anything stupid with one of his apparent father figures. All this reasoning of course relies on the truth in Laith’s claims of parentage. Still, he doesn’t have many other options. Finally he lets out a breath and nods. 

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Okay. Does that work for everyone?” He asks, and is met with a resounding nod from the others. Laith shoots Lance a grateful smile, and Lance returns it with a little wink. Keith looks away, ignoring the weird pang his heart gives upon seeing it. 

“Alright, Let’s get to bed. We’ve got lots of stuff to do in the morning.” Keith says, then leaves Lance and Laith to their own, trusting that they’ll know what to do from there.

◊◊◊

Laith is miserable. 

When he’d woken up, staring groggily at Grandma Krolia and Aunt Romelle he thought for a split second that he was back home, that the signal from Dad and Papa was just a dream. But they looked different, younger, and Grandma K was in strange armor. That should’ve been his first indication that something was wrong, but once his eyes landed on his parents—

He’d lost it. He was too wrapped up in the sheer, stupid joy of having them back that it didn’t even matter that they were wearing their old paladin armor from back when the war was still going. It didn’t matter that he was  _ outside  _ for some reason, in the middle of a fucking field, none of it had mattered. They were back and they were safe and they were  _ there,  _ and all Laith could do was cry. 

But these people aren’t his parents. Dad is too cold and tentative with him. Papa is too nervous. They’re too young and not nearly as disgustingly goey with each other as his parents are. This pair doesn’t even seem to  _ like  _ one another. They’ve obviously made it past their stupid fake rivalry phase, but they hold none of the affection Laith has grown familiar with. No tender touches or meaningful glances, no lovestruck staring at the other when they think he isn’t looking. They’re probably friends, but nothing more. Laith doesn’t know why that hurts so much. 

It almost hurts as much as the knowledge that they don’t recognize him at all. He doesn’t exist to them, he’s nothing. Laith thought that his dependence on their constant love for him had evaporated once they left, but meeting them again made him realize that he’d never stopped relying on that at all. Back home he still read their stupid lunch notes and birthday cards they make for him, he still rides Dad’s rusty hoverbike around just to feel him, he still had access to every little lingering moment that reminded him that he is loved. 

Now all he has is a pair of people who don’t care about him at all. 

Well, that isn’t fair. Lance at least seems to hold some level of affection for him. Laith knows from stories that Dad used to be really cold because he wasn’t comfortable letting his emotions have such control over him because he tended to lash out whenever they managed to escape. He didn’t realize until falling for Papa that in suppressing those emotions, he also ended up suffocating the good ones like happiness and love. Laith has never known a Dad that wasn’t a complete and utter sap, so it was hard for him to imagine the edgy loner they’d always described. Now that’s all he can see. 

At least he still  _ sort of  _ has Papa. Lance has always been unable to resist doting over Laith, and it seems that—even if he doesn’t know Laith yet—the trait has carried between realities. Maybe it’s just always been there. But Papa is stuck inside his head. While Dad’s problems had been in his heart, Papa’s are in his brain. Until Dad had been there to tell him otherwise, Papa would always mentally talk himself in circles, planning every possible bad outcome, every way that people could reject him—until he lost the courage to ever try new things. He didn’t want to risk the potential failure. After seeing the tentative way Lance spoke in this reality—as if he was already wincing, waiting for the backlash before he even finished his sentence—it’s worse than Laith has ever imagined. Without each other, his parents are completely different. 

“Hey buddy, I managed to steal one of Pidge’s pillows without her noticing—the little demon literally has  _ two dozen  _ of them, circled around her like some sort of nest. It’s ridiculous.” Papa—no,  _ Lance _ —says, ducking into Iris’s cockpit. Laith turns to see him holding two pillows under one arm and two bedrolls in the other. He unceremoniously drops them onto the floor in a haphazard pile of fluff. 

“She’s a pigeon. What else do you expect?” Laith responds, standing up from the chair and going over to this person who his Papa once was to help set up. Lance’s eyes light up, and something hard and painful fills Laith’s throat at the familiarity of it. 

“You’re right! Why didn’t I think of that?!” He exclaims, and Laith can’t help but smile. It’s a weak one, but still a smile. “Well, I’m gonna go change into more comfortable clothes. Have you ever tried sleeping in armor? It sounds like a fine idea when you’re worn out and exhausted after a mission, but it hurts like a bitch the morning after.” 

“Yeah, I actually just woke up from a nice little inter-dimensional knockout just a few dobashes ago.” Laith deadpans, and Lance laughs out loud.  _ God,  _ Laith thinks,  _ I’d forgotten how his laugh sounds.  _

“You’re funny, Laith. Obviously you take after me,” he says, straightening and puffing his chest out, and Laith rolls his eyes but chuckles just the same. He’d missed this. He’d missed this  _ a lot.  _ Missed it so much that he can almost ignore the way that his heart tells him that he’s betraying his  _ real  _ Papa by enjoying it. “Do you have any other clothes than your armor? Because I think Pidge might have some extra shirts that might fit you.” Laith nods and walks over to a compartment to the right side of the pilot’s chair, pressing a button.

“Yeah, after you guys were stuck in space with just one pair of earth clothes I learned to pack extra,” he says, pulling a pair of pajama shorts and a big tee shirt of Dad’s out and closing the compartment with a  _ click.  _ Lance smiles.

“You’re a smart kid, Laith,” he says, and the glimmer in his blue eyes almost looks like…  _ pride?  _ He doesn’t want to believe it, how could Lance already be proud of a son he didn’t even know he had until a few varga ago? But the look disappears with a shake of his head, and Lance leans back, cracking his spine. “I’ll be back in five.”

Laith watches him go, marvelling in the familiar way he saunters down the steps to Iris’s jaw. This Papa is so similar yet so very different—it’s disorienting, to say the least. Laith changes into his pajamas, tossing his armor onto his pilot’s seat, he’ll take care of it later. Then he reaches back into the compartment and pulls out his jacket, hugging it gratefully to his chest. He didn’t wake up this morning and fly into space thinking he’d be stuck in another reality for the foreseeable future, if he had he would have grabbed a few of his momentos from home. It’s sort of funny, he made the exact same mistake as the whole of team Voltron had right at the beginning of their adventure. At least he still has this. Lance returns wearing a pair of familiar alien sweatpants—Papa still wears them in Laith’s reality, claiming there never was softer fabric to exist—and a plain white tee shirt. 

“Well, you ready for bed?” he asks. Laith nods sleepily, climbing into the bedroll Lance had set up for him, just a few feet away from his own. The second his head hits the pillow, his eyelids grow unbearably heavy. He hardly hears Lance’s quiet, “goodnight, Laith,” before he slips into unconsciousness for the second time today. 

◊◊◊

“Goodnight, Laith,” Lance says fondly, watching the kid as his eyelids droop lower and lower over the brilliant violet of his eyes until they’re completely covered. Poor kid is utterly exhausted. He shuffles into his own bedroll, taking a second to adjust to the way his body settles against the bedroll pad in a different way than he’s used to (the planet they landed on is slightly smaller than Earth, so it’s gravity is just a touch less powerful). Then he turns towards Laith, and before he can talk himself out of it, he ruffles the kid’s curly hair in a goodnight gesture. He doesn’t know why, it just felt  _ right.  _

As he retracts his arm and closes his eyes, his ears pick up a small sound that breaks his heart.

“G’night Papa,” Laith mutters unconsciously.

Lance has to try really hard not to cry.  
  



	2. Claw Marks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it"  
> -David Foster Wallace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So, um, season 7 sort of threw a wrench into my plans with this fic, just because a LOT changed. I won't spoil it just in case anyone hasn't watched it yet, but I'm just going to say that my plan for it is not going to change, just pretend that it takes place immediately after season 6. So sort of like an AU! ok, cool! here's chapter 2!

**** Laith wakes up inside Iris’s cockpit, the comforting purple glow washing over him like a second blanket. This is not an unfamiliar scene for him. In fact, in the days after his parents’ disappearance, he’d found it almost unbearable to fall asleep in his bedroom at home; the warm, lingering smell of vanilla and cinnamon from the incense Papa always had lit around the house quickly became a bittersweet aroma that only reminded him exactly how empty his home was. So as he opens his eyes and sees a foreign dark blue sleeping bag in place of his yellow comforter and feels the long brown arms of his Papa wrapped around him instead of the cool metal floor of the cockpit, he’s more than a little startled.

Laith jolts back, but his movement is restricted by the bedroll, so all he succeeds in doing is jostling Lance until he’s wide awake. The man opens his eyes sleepily, muttering something about forgetting his face mask. Laith’s heart thuds against his chest like a drum, suddenly remembering that  _ this guy is not Papa.  _ He’d been nice enough to stay with Laith so he wouldn’t have to sleep in Pidge’s lion, but now he’s probably weirded out because Laith had cuddled up to him desperately like some lonely little kid missing their mommy. And cuddled he was; in fact, when Laith awoke he’d been curled into the fetal position, face buried into Lance’s chest. He must’ve unconsciously wandered over to Lance sometime during the night, completely invading his privacy just because he’s missing his  _ real  _ Papa. 

“Oh, sorry,” Lance’s voice is scratchy and he sounds  _ just like Papa,  _ Laith wants to start sobbing all over again, “you were sort of shivering in your sleep so I got closer to help you warm up. It’s pretty chilly in here!” Lance sits up and stretches, the joints in his spine popping like fireworks. He groans deeply, and Laith sits there confused. So  _ Lance  _ started cozying up first? It sounded like something Papa would do, but Papa would also lie and make up a story about it being his fault instead if Laith had actually been the one to initiate the snuggling in order to spare him the embarrassment. It’s disorienting.

“Oh, okay,” Laith responds and Lance smiles warmly at him.

“Well, you didn’t kill me in my sleep, and as far as I can tell, we’re still on the planet we landed on before. Congrats! You passed the ‘are-you-a-traitor-or-are-you-really-just-a-benign-stranger’ test!” Lance proclaims, a wide grin donning his face. Laith can’t help but smile back. Papa’s goofiness has always been contagious. 

“I’m so glad I didn’t do all that studying for nothing,” Laith says, and Lance’s smile  _ blossoms.  _

“Have I told you how funny you are yet? Because you are. A lot.” He giggles, causing Laith to puff with pride. Then Lance’s smile is replaced by something more thoughtful and cautious—a look Laith recognizes to be the face he wears when he isn’t sure if he should say something or not. Finally Lance sighs and looks the shorter boy in the eyes, bracing himself. “Hey, Laith?”

“Yeah?” Laith tries to channel as much gentle encouragement into the answer as he can. 

“I was just wondering, what were you doing when you found out I wasn’t like,  _ actually  _ your Papa. You grabbed my face, right? What was that about?” Lance asks in a rush, the words tumbling out like he’s letting out a breath of air he’d been holding in for days. Laith raises one eyebrow. That’s it? That’s all Lance had been dancing around? He’d made it feel like he was about to ask him to blow up a planet.

“Oh, my Papa has a couple tattoos, and one is behind his ear. I like to look at them sometimes, so I was just doing what felt familiar when I saw…” he trails off, gesturing awkwardly, “Yeah.” Lance’s eyes light up.

“I have tattoos in the future?! That’s  _ sick! _ ” he exclaims, and Laith giggles. “What are they of? Wait, no, don’t tell me. I want it to be a surprise.” 

“Okay,” Laith responds through chuckles. Lance smiles back, then bends over to pick up his bag of clothes at the foot of his bedroll. He doesn’t pull out any regular clothes, yet, instead just a grey-brown jacket. Laith’s eyes widen.

“Woah,” he mutters, stepping closer and reaching out to touch the jacket. It looks just like the photos—the orange patches Laith has run his fingers over a thousand times on his own jacket look far more vibrant than they are now, same with the black shoulder pads and black strip at the bottom. Laith has only ever known his dads’ famous jackets from photos and the patches they’d put together to make his own. These articles of clothing carry so much significance in his family, it’s strange to see one just so casually thrown over a shoulder like the way Lance is doing right now. 

“Are you okay?” Lance asks quietly, and Laith realizes with a jolt that his fingers have wandered over to the orange sleeves, stroking the fabric absentmindedly with no doubt a stupidly awed expression on his face. He pulls away quickly, wiping his hands on his shirt as if trying to remove the residue of the moment from his body. 

“Uh, yeah, sorry. I’ve just never seen your jacket other than in pictures,” he explains, fidgeting. It can’t hurt to explain it to him, right? “Since yours and Keith’s jackets were like, the only things you took into space, they got really worn out, but you didn’t want to throw them away once everything was over and Matt is a really good tailor turns out, so he made this,” he digs around through his sleeping bag and pulls out the jacket from his compartment, holding it up for Lance to take with wide eyes. “The orange patches on the sleeves are from yours, along with the black bits on the shoulders and at the bottoms of the sleeves and at the hem. And the yellow stripe on the chest, the collar, and the white stripes going down the sleeves are from Dad—from Keith’s. Matt just sewed the salvageable parts from your jackets into a different jacket he already owned and when I was born you gave it to me.”

Lance silently regards the jacket, rubbing his thumbs over the different parts as Laith explains, his expression unreadable. A few tense moments pass as Laith worries that he’s said too much—it’s gotta be weird for Lance to be hearing, right? He’s not even in love with Keith yet, let alone considering merging their precious jackets together to give to their son. He probably shouldn’t have said anything, it would have been easy to brush off as nothing, to just pretend he’d seen a hair on Lance’s jacket and back away. But no, he had to go and get sentimental with this guy who  _ really isn’t his Papa  _ as much as he looks the part, Lance hasn’t grown into that yet and Laith shouldn’t be expecting as much—

“This is awesome,” Lance breathes, interrupting Laith’s frantic overthinking. “I mean, think about it! This jacket is like, the culmination of our entire lives—of the entire  _ war,  _ I mean, that’s just—” he sputters for words for a few seconds, then his shoulders drop and he looks up, an awed smile on his face. “It’s really neat. I’m glad you have this.”

Laith smiles gratefully, taking the jacket back as Lance offers it and throwing it over his shoulders. “Thanks. I am too.”

“Well, you ready for breakfast? I think Hunk said he was trying to figure out how to make tortillas from the flour we got a few planets back,” Lance asks and Laith nods. The morning is crisp and dewy, the sun glows a dark orange as it rises above the hills, casting rich sapphire strips of shadow from each tall length of golden grass. The wet, misty air nips at Laith’s nose and cheeks, so he pulls the jacket higher up over his neck. Lance does the same, sauntering down from Iris’s jaw loudly to alert his teammates. Keith and Shiro are sitting around a fire, smiling at each other and making jokes; Krolia, Romelle, and Hunk are playing with the space wolf, rubbing its belly as Hunk’s loud joyous laughter bubbles into the air and tangling with the fire’s smoke. Pidge is sitting slumped and exhausted with her back against a bundle of the grass that they’d cleared out, creating a makeshift bean bag chair. She’s swaddled in just about every one of her blankets and pillows, tapping away at her laptop. Laith briefly wonders if she’s been getting enough sleep—he knows insomnia has always been one of her biggest struggles. 

“Well guys, I think he passed,” Lance announces, causing all eyes to turn towards the two of them. Allura stands up from where she’d been stoking the fire with Coran, a wide smile on her face. 

“Ah, good morning Lance, Laith!” she says happily, gesturing towards the fire. “Hunk has made us some breakfast. Why don’t you take a seat?” Laith walks past her and sits on one of the bundles of dry grass.

“Aren’t we worried about starting a plains fire with all this kindling?” he asks eyeing the fire and surrounding golden plains. Coran shakes his head, making an indignant noise.

“No, my boy, the moisture in this planet’s atmosphere is enough to prevent the grass from catching fire to quickly. As long as we thoroughly douse the flame once we leave, it’ll be fine.” The Altean waves his fingers dismissively, and while Laith is still unsure, he sits down on one of the provided ‘chairs’ and gratefully accepts a plate of alien food from Hunk. His mouth waters and he immediately tucks into the food. When was the last time he ate? Dinner two days ago, right? He hadn’t eaten anything after finding the signal from his parents, he doubted he would be able to even if he’d remembered to grab a snack for the road. His nerves were too alight. Speaking of which…

“Hey, Allura?” he asks tentatively. The Altean looks up, teal-violet eyes sparkling.

“Yes?” she responds.

“When do you think we could go back to where you guys picked me up? To see if there’s any way I could get back to my reality, I mean. I was chasing my parents’ signal over there, and I don’t know how long it’ll last. I want to get back as soon as I can.” He might’ve been too exhausted to protest last night, but now he’ll be damned if he lets these people keep him hostage a second longer. He knows they mean well, and as far as he can tell, they’re pretty much the same as his own family and friends back home. But he needs to get back. Who knows how long his parents—his  _ real  _ parents—will be okay? Allura smiles empathetically, and Laith remembers her history, having her entire world taken away from her by the Galra. She of all people must understand his need to go home. 

“We can go once everyone gets packed. Hunk and Pidge were up all night repairing Iris, so she should be up and running by now. Do you still have the coordinates to that static reality patch? We know where we found you, but who knows how long you were drifting through space before that.” Laith’s brows furrow. 

“Uh, I think so. I’ll check Iris’s data logs.”

“Perfect,” Allura says with a kind smile. Laith nods awkwardly, then looks around the fire, seeking out the engineer and tech expert.

“Oh, and, uh—thanks, Pidge and Hunk. It means a lot.” he says, and Pidge throws him a tired smile and a thumbs-up, then turns her eyes back to the screen in front of her. Hunk tears his attention away from the cosmic wolf to give a quick “no problem!” and Laith nods at both of them gratefully. He then lapses into silence, gazing at the flickering orange flames.

Dad liked to take them camping in the desert in the springtime when it didn’t get too hot during the day, and these expeditions were full of some of Laith’s favorite memories. Before every trip the three of them would stand in their kitchen making tinfoil-wrapped packages with chicken, bacon, potatoes, and corn inside, listening to ABBA and dancing exuberantly, though Dad and Laith could never get quite as theatrical as Papa always did. They would wake up when it was still dark outside, toss soda and water into a cooler—pink lemonade for Dad, he didn’t like carbonation, it made him cry—and hot chocolate mix into a plastic bag, and pack the trunk of their junky SUV full of the plushest sleeping bags and pillows imaginable, and drive until the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. Sunrises in the desert were always the best, towering sedimentary structures of eroded stone casting infinite shadows across the cracked red earth, making the terrain look like tiger stripes. 

Dad would park the car at the base of any rocky, spine-like structure where there would be plenty of shade, Papa would climb out the passenger window _ — _ it had become a tradition of his after the door was broken for a few months, even after they fixed it he still insisted—and the three of them would start unpacking before it got too hot. They’d spend the day climbing the rough rocks, seeing who could get to the highest point, laughing and dancing to Papa’s portable speakers, and as evening fell they would build the campfire. That was always Dad’s favorite part. While Papa preferred to take them exploring and finding the coolest looking rocks or identifying different plants, Dad was happy just building and sitting around a warm fire. He taught Laith how to stack the larger pieces of wood around the thinner kindling, and how to light it so it would stay lit even in windy weather. They’d throw their tinfoil packages into the glowing embers, roasting marshmallows as the dinner cooked because Dessert First was one of Papa’s biggest rules for camping trips. The tinfoil dinners somehow tasted better than any other dinner they could ever make at home, and after stuffing themselves full on charred marshmallows, chocolate, and potatoes, they would climb into their tent—leaving the top open so they could fall asleep looking at the sugary sky. 

This fire looks lukewarm compared to his family’s campfires. There’s no warmth of laughter, love, and ABBA to stoke it into a perfect inferno. Here there is only war and necessity and an endless expanse of wet yellow grass. 

“Laith?” Allura’s leaning close, and he startles back, blinking with confusion. Her face tells him that she’d probably said her name multiple times before he snapped back into reality. 

“Sorry, yeah?” he responds, clearing his throat. The princess grins brightly, causing Laith to shift uncomfortably. Her smile looks a little… off. It reminds him of the sly face she made that time Laith accidentally mentioned that he’d found Papa’s baby pictures. 

“Oh, I was just wondering…” she trails off, feigning deep thought, “do you think you could tell me more about Iris?” she finally blurts out in a rush, holding her hands under her chin excitedly. Laith blinks, surprised. Well, he wasn’t expecting  _ that.  _ He tries to pretend that he hadn’t been bracing himself to hear something much more sinister.

“Oh! Uh, sure! What do you want to know?” he says, and Allura practically  _ squeals.  _

“Everything! Who made her? Was it my father? Coran said he found his magical signature on her but I don’t believe it. Is he still alive in your reality?” her words tumble from her mouth like water falling from a spout, so fast that Leith has to take a second to remember it all.

“Uh, no. I’m sorry. As far as I can tell my reality is exactly the same as yours except, well, about a decade into the future,” he says, and Allura wilts a little.

“Oh, I see. Then who made Iris?” she asks soberly. Laith brightens. Hopefully she’ll be happy to hear what he says next.

“You did, actually. You, Coran, and the Galaxy Garrison on Earth have been using Altean technology to create all sorts of cool stuff. You’ve only made three more Lions, though. You’re worried about making these super weapons mass-produced.” Laith says, and if Allura’s smile was bright before, it’s nothing compared to the dazzling joy that alights her face now. Her eyes open wide, positively glittering every color of the rainbow.

“ _ Really?!  _ I made three more Voltron lions?! How is that possible? Coran, didn’t you say that Iris had my father’s magical signature attached to her?” She turns to the other Altean, who appears deep in thought.

“No, I only said that it was the same magic that ran through your veins. I assumed that meant it was made by your father because you haven’t made anything magical since Lotor’s fake Voltron. Appears I was wrong,” Coran says with a smile, and Allura turns back to Laith, bouncing up and down on her grassy chair.

“Tell me more! Who pilots the other lions?” she asks.

“Well, Romelle has the Pink lion, which is just a little bit bigger than Iris,” Laith says. Romelle’s head whips up from where she’d been cuddling the space wolf’s belly.

“You mean I pilot one of those things?” she clarifies, and Laith nods. “Oh, wow! So I can press all the buttons and shoot laser beams and save the day?!” she squeals, and Laith grimaces.

“Yeah, you’re exactly the same as the Romelle in my dimension,” he says, which earns him a laugh from Allura.

“Who pilots the other one?” Pidge’s voice emerges from behind him, dripping with curiosity. Laith turns and grins at her.

“Your brother, Matt. His lion’s name is Sienna, which is short for Burnt Sienna. He stopped calling her that, though, because you and Lance kept making BS jokes.” Laith’s grin widens as Pidge’s curious face transforms into a wicked cackle.

“That’s so perfect, wow!” she cries through giggles, “we totally would. BS! Here comes Matthew Holt and his glorious lion, Bullshit!” she wipes a tear from the corner of her eye, looking more awake and bright than she has the entire time Laith has been here. She can’t be much older than him in this dimension, which is weird but sort of comforting to know. 

“So you, Romelle, and Matt fly the other lions? Am I working on more?” Allura asks over Pidge’s delirious laughter.

“No, I don’t think so. Krolia and Shiro both declined to have one, and Coran is content to help pilot the other, bigger ships you’re building. The cool thing with Pink, Sienna, and Iris, though, is that they can fuse together like Voltron in all sorts of different combinations. There’s a different type of robot spaceship for each combo—Iris and Sienna make a robin, Pink and Iris make a stag, Pink and Sienna make a cobra, and all three of us create an elephant. It’s pretty cool, actually. You didn’t plan any of the animal combinations, you just shot your magic into them and let their consciousnesses decide what happened from there.” By the time Laith is finished, everyone is listening in, staring slack-jawed between him and Allura. 

“Incredible,” Shiro mutters.

“Princess, that’s…” Coran starts, but trails off, shocked. Then he splits into a happy, pride filled grin. “Of course, Princess. If anyone could create something as incredible as that, it’s you.” Allura blushes, running her hands over her face.

“I’m—I don’t know what to say. It’s so amazing, I don’t think I even believe it,” she says. Laith smiles comfortingly.

“Well, as long as you keep your drive to constantly improve, you won’t have to believe it. You’ll just have to wait until it happens,” he says. Allura nods resolutely.

“Oh, trust me, that’s not going  _ anywhere.  _ Everyone, finish eating. We’re going to take Laith back to his reality the moment we’re finished packing up.” 

◊◊◊

Laith doesn’t know what he was expecting. 

Perhaps some wormhole-like warp in the stars, or maybe a copy of the static reality patch, except differently colored because of the different reality. 

Either way, he certainly wasn’t expecting this.

After his (tearful) reunion with Iris, Laith had been allowed to fly her, leading the way to the coordinates that had taken him to the static reality that turned out to be a portal. Lance had tried to talk to him a couple times along the way, along with Keith—though he sounded more nervous than sincere—but Laith was too preoccupied worrying about his parents to fully participate in the conversation. He’s kicking himself over and over again for not taking the extra three seconds to message Aunt Romelle or Grandma K with the coordinates, they could trace it with better precision and caution than he, and if the signal disappears by the time he gets back because he’s too late… 

All these worries had stemmed from the fear that he won’t get back in time, but upon reaching the place his coordinates took him, Laith realizes that being  _ too late  _ isn’t the problem. 

The problem is that he can’t get back at all. 

He’d parked Iris in the exact spot in space that they’d been when he fell through the static, but the stars were in perfect, pristine clarity. Not even a faint shimmer to disrupt them. It was like the static had never existed. Which was impossible, he’s poured over every study his parents have ever completed in the two years since they’ve been gone, and the only way to reverse the curse is to apply a patch device the two invented from the outside. But so far, there have been no discoveries of how to heal a piece that hasn’t completely ruptured. Laith has one of the patches in his cockpit at all times—just in case—but after a quick peek under Iris’s dash, Laith knows it’s still there. So it couldn’t have closed behind him, and no one else was with Laith upon his departure to close it with a different device. Somehow, the reality has been healed, and Laith has no way of knowing how. 

“I just don’t get it!” he cries suddenly, slamming his fist against the pilot chair’s armrest. Iris whines angrily through his mind, but he can feel a swell of confusion and anguish riding beneath it all, just as large as Laith’s own. “How could it have been sewn shut! Lance, Keith, you guys haven’t made the patching device yet in this reality, right?”

“Sorry, but no. I didn’t have even the slightest inclination of what that could be until you explained it to us,” Keith apologizes. Laith glares daggers at the infuriatingly immaculate picture of space before him. There isn’t even a scar.

“Perhaps we should head down to another peaceful planet and gather our thoughts? It might be easier to find a solution when we can all see each other,” Allura suggests after a few more moments of silence. Laith grunts in bitter, reluctant affirmation. 

“Alright. I’ll lead the way,” Keith radios through the comms. 

The whole ride there Laith feels himself going numb. 

Allura had said they might be able to figure something out if they’re all sitting together—which is total bullshit, Laith can’t imagine what eye contact will do for their combined cognitive abilities—but what can  _ they  _ do? Laith is the only one in this reality who knows about the static, he’s the only one who has had minimal study over his parents’  _ very incomplete  _ research. If anyone is going to get him out of here, it’s going to be himself. And he doesn’t trust his abilities at all. 

Not even his parents had been able to get back. A theory has been forming in Laith’s head ever since he woke up, one that chills him to his very core. He guesses that perhaps the same thing that happened to Laith—fallen into a static patch and landed in a different reality—happened to them. And they still haven’t found their way home… 

They’re the smartest people he knows. If Dad and Papa are lost, then Laith will never be found. 

What if they don’t even know that they’re in a different reality? What if some different Laith in another dimension lost his  _ real  _ parents, and when Laith’s parents fell into  _ his  _ reality, Dad and Papa were none the wiser?

Why is it fair that Laith is stuck with two parents who don’t even know him? 

He doesn’t like to admit it, but Laith feels very small much of the time. His parents and all their friends were heroes who  _ literally saved the universe.  _ To this day, Dad and Papa have been working nonstop to try and heal whatever sickness their universe has caught, constantly putting themselves in danger. They are so very big and Laith is so very small. It’s a cowardly thing to say, he knows, but Laith doesn’t want to be a hero. All that has come for his heroes is loss and pain and suffering. Sure, they saved the universe and got the glory, but at what cost? Was it worth it? Dad and Papa sure thought so, but Laith does not. If the universe dying meant that Laith would get to see his parents again, he would sacrifice it all without a second’s hesitation. 

If the universe dies, and all life is destroyed, Laith wants to be with his parents when it happens. 

They arrive at the planet, and Laith hurriedly wipes the tears falling from his eyes, taking deep, shuddering breaths to try and scare them back. He leaves Iris’s jaw, knowing that he looks like a wreck, but deciding he doesn’t care. Lance is the first to greet him, but he’s not Laith’s  _ real  _ Papa. He doesn’t  _ actually  _ care about him. He feels absolutely no guilt when he shoves the Red paladin’s offer for a hug aside, storming down the path to where the other paladins stand in a circle. Keith is looking at him, a strange sort of longing in his eyes, but when Laith makes eye contact he looks away quickly, as if he’s worried about getting caught expressing any emotions other than irritation and leadership. Laith rolls his eyes. 

“Laith, I think I have a theory. But you aren’t going to like it,” says Coran once Laith and Lance catch up to them. All eyes are turned on him, and he can feel their fake sympathy skittering over his skin like bugs. He shudders and looks at the ground. These people aren’t his  _ real  _ family. They don’t care. He repeats this in his head like a mantra, and the thick, inky pool of bitterness grows heavier in his stomach. Good. He likes the pain. 

“Let’s hear it,” he says gruffly, and  _ why  _ did Dad have to pass down that annoying trait of being unable to hide it when he’s been crying? Coran takes a deep breath, as if preparing himself. What does  _ he  _ have to prepare for? It’s not like he’s the one who has just been told that there’s no way to get back to his own reality. 

“Okay. I’ve been thinking since we got to your coordinates, and I think I have an idea about why the static reality has been mended without your knowledge, but first I need to know a few numbers. How old are you?” the Altean asks. Laith sighs, irritated. Why can’t he just get on with his theory? What will a little game of icebreakers do to get him back to his reality?

“I’m fourteen,” he replies grudgingly. Coran nods thoughtfully. 

“And do you know how old Lance and Keith are in your dimension?”

“It’ll be Keith’s 41st birthday in October, and Lance is 38.” Laith has had to celebrate Papa’s birthday three times without him, Dad’s third is coming up in about a month. Oh how it aches.

“I see. You said that you and your parents started discovering the influence from the Beast around five years ago?” Laith nods again. What is he getting at? 

Coran draws another deep breath in, a horrible sadness in his eyes. He looks at his fingers, counting them for a second before nodding.

“Well, I think that answers it then. Your reality is in our future—if my calculations are correct, you’re ahead of us by twenty decaphoebs. So five decaphoebs ago for  _ you  _ is fifteen decaphoebs into the future for us. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, well, there will be no portals for you to get back until that time has passed. The Beast simply doesn’t exist yet.”

Laith can feel the walls of what little hope he thought he had come crumbling down around him, crushing him under the debris.  _ Fifteen years.  _

“Fifteen years,” he mutters weakly. 

_ Fifteen years.  _

If he waits fifteen years… He’ll be 29 years old when he gets back. 

“Laith, buddy, are you alright?” Lance’s voice sounds fuzzy over the ringing in Laith’s ears. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to—” That does it for Laith. Suddenly he can’t hold it in anymore.

“ _ No!  _ Don’t you get it?! We won’t find a way to get me home before then because I still don’t even know how I got here in the first place! Besides, who are  _ you  _ to be solving my problems? You’re not my  _ real  _ Papa, you’re just some immature teenaged version of him! Hell, you’re barely even older than  _ me!  _ You’re just a dumb kid who thinks everything can be solved with sunshine, rainbows, and what, the power of friendship? You all are still stupid and naive and you haven’t seen  _ half  _ of what this war has in store for you. So no, I’m not  _ alright.  _ I’m angry and I’m tired and I want my Dad and my Papa to come back and I most certainly don’t want  _ you. _ ” Laith is crying, Lance looks hurt and scared and worried because  _ of course he does.  _ He’s just a kid like everyone else here. The only people that could help him are gone, lost to another dimension years ago. They’ve probably forgotten about him already, settled down with a new Laith, enjoying their lives without him. He spins on his heel before anyone can say anything to try and stop him, sprinting into the deep purple forests of the uninhabited planet they’d landed on. 

The heroes never get a happy ending. That’s just from the fairy tales. His parents were heroes and now he’s probably never going to see them again. Laith picks up speed, enjoying the burn in his legs and in his lungs. The forest’s trees are impossibly tall and thin, like orchid colored bamboo. The leaves are feathery soft, caressing his tear stained cheeks as he brushes past them. Above him the canopy of lilac casts shadows in the dappled orange sunlight, dripping over his armor like river water over rocks. It’s beautiful, Laith thinks. It’s unfair how the sight of something so beautiful is now saturated with the bitter knowledge that he no longer has a family. Never again will he be able to think of this forest and remember anything but this feeling. 

He doesn’t know how far he’s gone when he stumbles over something—probably just his own feet, numb with exhaustion—and tumbles into the hard forest floor. It’s surprisingly smooth and hard as rock, slamming against his tired body with bruising force. He stays there, on the ground, heaving in air and listening to the roaring thunder of the blood rushing through his ears, feeling everything and nothing at once. 

Footsteps register behind him, but he can’t bring himself to look up. It’s probably Lance, following him to try and tell him to cheer up or something like the good-hearted person he is. Laith almost feels guilty for being so cruel to him. 

“Hey,” the voice surprises him. It’s Keith. Laith brings his head up at this and sees the Black paladin standing just a few feet away. His chest rises up and down slightly harder than usual, making it look like he’s just come back from a light jog rather than a sprint after a deranged teenager. Laith puts his head back down.

“Hey,” he croaks back. There’s a shuffling noise as Keith steps forward and lowers himself to sitting beside Laith. “I suppose I can’t tell you to go away, can I?” he asks, his voice muffled by the hard ground he buries his face into. 

“Is that what you want?” Keith’s voice is softer, now  _ painfully  _ similar to Dad’s. After shedding the hard shell of forced indifference, he sounds so much more raw and real. It brings fresh tears to Laith’s eyes. 

“No,” Laith finally responds. He pulls himself up to sitting, his armored shoulder just touching Keith’s. If it were Dad he would wrap his arm around Laith and pull them both down so Laith was lying on his chest. They’d talk without looking at each other, but both looking at the same sky. It would connect them in their conversation while maintaining an ease and freedom to say whatever came to mind, as if they were merely talking to themselves. Laith would be able to feel the rumble of each word, the gentle thrum of Dad’s heartbeat. 

“I’m glad.” Keith says, and Laith makes an ‘mmh’ noise in response. They stay silent for a while after that, Laith avoiding Keith’s eyes and Keith probably doing the same. The silence is not uncomfortable, but Laith can tell the older boy has something more that he wants to say and can’t find a way to do it.

Dad said that before he fell in love with Lance, he was terrified of emotion. He liked to feel in control, because when he lost control he lashed out. He thought that he was incapable of truly showing emotion without hurting other people because the only times he’d done it ended with him punching or screaming. Papa reminded him that emotions are like soda bottles. They get shaken around whenever new things come their way, and if you keep the lid screwed on tight, there will come a time when it will inevitably explode all at once. It’s better to let the bubbles fizz out in little amounts at a time to avoid such an apocalyptic explosion. All those times where he’d lashed out, gone insane from his feelings, it wasn’t because that just happened every time he felt upset or frustrated. It was because he hadn't been allowing himself to feel anything until that point. 

Emotion isn’t a bad thing, he’d realized. Because his love for Papa felt like riding his bike through the desert as fast as it would go. It felt like the drop in his stomach when he took Black in a nosedive. It felt like running his fingers over the sun-warmed carpet underneath his bedroom window, like running so fast he was flying. It felt like hot campfires and smooth water. Loving Lance felt like the most wonderful thing in the universe, so how could showing it be a bad thing? Fuck it if the other nasty feelings had to come to the surface along with it. As long as he could always be embraced by the bliss of love, he realized he would be alright.

This Dad is still stuck inside a soda bottle, too afraid to loosen the lid. Terrified that something bad will slip out and ruin everything. But it looks like he’s trying. 

“Did I… Do I talk about my past at all? In your reality?” There it is. The lid is loose, and fizzy soda comes bubbling out, dripping down the bottle’s side. That must’ve been difficult.

“Sort of. You more prefer to focus on the ‘neverending present,’ as you put it.” Laith says with a fond, sad smile. The neverending present has never felt more lonely. 

“I like that,” Keith says, shifting slightly on the rough, uncomfortable dirt. “I’ve just been thinking… remembering when I was your age, an angry kid without a real support system. Shiro was the only one who I ever really trusted before I met these guys. And I guess… I guess I’m trying to let you know that I’ve been in your shoes, and I’m here for you.”

_ I’m here for you.  _ Laith has heard these words a million times from a million different people, but it somehow means more coming from Keith. Laith opens his mouth to say as much, but Keith cuts him off, continuing. 

“Wait, I’m not finished. Listen Laith. I’ve lost parents before. My mom left when I was a baby, and my dad died on a firefighting mission. So I know that nothing anybody says will make that sting feel better, you’ll still be that kid with a broken family until you find them again.” Keith’s voice is raw and passionate, and the blunt accuracy is something Laith is not accustomed to. People tend to dance around every word they speak to him nowadays, afraid of upsetting him or being insensitive. Honesty is hard to find. He welcomes it. Suddenly Keith grabs Laith’s hand, large and enveloping like a hug. Laith looks up at him in surprise and comes face-to-face with such an acute sincerity burning in Keith’s eyes, he can feel it in his soul.

“I also know that if your Dad is  _ anything  _ like me at all, he would  _ never  _ leave you. Because he knows how that feels, too. And I promise you that he—that  _ I _ am doing everything in my power to fight and claw my way back to you as soon as possible. You’ll see him soon, I swear it.” Keith’s voice breaks, clearly yearning for Laith to understand. Tears prickle at Laith’s eyes  _ again _ —you’d think that after all this crying he’d have no tears left to give, but you’d be wrong—and he throws himself forward, wrapping his arms around Keith’s neck.

“Thank you,” he sobs, “I believe you. Thank you.”

Keith’s arms close securely around Laith’s body, sure of himself this time. 

After Laith calms down, he sighs and pulls away. “Come on, kiddo. We should head back,” he says, and Keith gives him a confused stare.

“Who are you calling kiddo? You’re fourteen years old!” Keith cries, and Laith rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, but compared to the Keith that I know you’re a baby. So you and Lance are kiddos.”

Keith laughs at this, causing Laith to flush with pride. 

“Alright, fine. Let’s go  _ kiddo. _ ” Keith jabs, heaving himself to his feet. He holds a hand up for Laith to take, which he does, but every muscle in his sore body screams for him to stop. He winces. “You alright?” Keith asks. Laith nods.

“Yeah, just a little sore.” He tries to brush it off, staggering past Keith in a general ‘forwards’ that looks identical to every other murky patch of violet forest. The Black paladin apparently doesn’t buy it, because suddenly Laith is being lifted into the air and placed securely onto Keith’s back. “What are you doing?!” Laith cries as Keith starts jogging. He shrugs, and Laith can feel it under his fingers.

“You probably weren’t paying much attention to how you got here, so I have to make sure your ass doesn’t get lost in the forest. This is the fastest way to do that,” he responds flippantly. Laith wants to protest, but he hasn’t gotten a piggyback ride from his parents in years. He’ll let himself have this. 

“Okay,” he says, much softer than he’d intended. Keith is quiet. The cloudlike leaves descend over them, catching the rich orange light of this planet’s sun like sparks drifting to the ground. 

Maybe the memory of this forest doesn’t have to be so ugly after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out @aku-usagi on tumblr, whose character Laith they generously allowed me to borrow for this fic!  
> http://aku-usagi.tumblr.com/
> 
> Here's my tumblr, if you wanna tag me or ask me anything or just chat!  
> http://wesurecara.tumblr.com/
> 
> If you like this fic, please consider donating to my ko-fi!!!  
> https://ko-fi.com/wecara


	3. Illusion of Knowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it’s the illusion of knowledge.” - Daniel J. Boorstin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! welcome back :) please feel free to let me know of any typos, I fear that I may not have caught them all with my editing process （／﹏＼）  
> Just so everyone is clear, Voltron takes place in the super future, so I use dates that are completely outlandish so that hopefully by the time the dates I describe roll around, this fic will be so lost to the past that nobody bothers to fact check me lmao. Thanks for reading!

 

 ****There really hasn’t ever been a time that Lance doesn’t feel like an absolute fuck up.

Even when he’s done something well, his stupid brain likes to remind him that things could’ve gone better if he’d done _this,_ or they would’ve been faster if he hadn’t done _that_ , it feels like he’s in a constant competition with himself to see who can conjure the most reasons to hate himself. The introduction of Laith—of his _son_ —had been like a beacon of hope for him. Apparently, somewhere in the future, he’d been responsible enough to raise and shape a real life person. And as far as he can tell, Laith is not broken or ruined or problematic. In Lance’s eyes, he is perfect. Which means he must’ve done _something_ right, for once in his life.

Nope, wrong. The _other_ Lance—the one Laith calls Papa—was the one to get it right. _This_ Lance is useless and unhelpful. Nothing he does is good enough. Why would it be? It’s not like this situation is any different than every other second of his life. He can’t even do something good for his own son he never knew he had. In fact, Lance’s feeble attempts at cheering Laith up had only hurt the kid more! Obviously Laith’s Papa would have said the right thing at the right time, so hearing Lance so pathetically miss the mark must’ve just rubbed in the fact that Lance is just a useless parody.

 _God_ he can never get it right, can he? And now it’s been vargas since Keith chased Laith into the foreign (probably dangerous) woods, and they’re probably hurt or even dead all because Lance breaks everything he touches, and it’s all his fault, and the team is just weakened by his presence, and everyone would be better off without him, and he should just—

Lance’s downward spiral is interrupted by the sounds of a panting Keith who comes stumbling out from the depths of the long, stemlike trunks of violet foliage with a very much unconscious Laith on his back.

“Oh my god!” Lance shrieks, his heart pounding out of his chest. He feels physically sick, seeing Laith hurt. Then immediately feels guilty for feeling like that, he’s just an impostor, he’s not Laith’s _real_ Papa, he should stop crossing mental boundaries he has no right trespassing, it’s his fault Laith is like this, he shouldn’t be—

“Shh, it’s okay, he’s okay, just sleeping,” Keith whispers, once again quieting Lance’s roaring, inky black thoughts. “Sorry it took so long, this kid seriously has some speed in him. It took a while to catch up, and after that he was too exhausted to walk by himself. I think he fell asleep not even fifteen dobashes after we started heading back.” Keith’s voice is quiet, obviously trying not to wake his cargo, but there’s an unmistakable softness to it that Lance finds entirely unfamiliar. Keith doesn’t emote very frequently in recent times—the days of giggling over food fights and joking about the bonding moment are over. Now everything has just been about war. This new tender protectiveness is sort of alarming, it must be the subconscious paternal instincts taking over. Instincts Lance has no right having. Somehow he feels like it fits Keith, though. It was probably future Keith who taught Laith all his good qualities. Lance could never help create something as radiant as the child dozing against Keith’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Lance says, choking over the thoughts already starting to suffocate him. He can’t afford to break down here, he has to wait until he’s in Red’s hangar where he’s out of everyone’s way. He can’t bother them _more_ with some stupid mental breakdown. “Do—do you want to drop him off in Iris?” he stutters, and confusion and something else flickers over Keith’s face for a moment before Allura’s voice cuts through the air.

“Keith, you’re back! Is Laith okay?” she shouts, jogging up to them, followed closely by Shiro and Hunk.

“Shh!” Keith and Lance say together, pointing to the sleeping Laith, then immediately sharing an odd look.

“Oh, sorry, is Laith okay?” Allura reiterates, this time in a whisper. Behind her, Hunk and Shiro are looking at each other and smirking, and Lance doesn’t like it. What kind of secret are they sharing without his knowledge?

“He’s fine, just tired. We’re gonna take him back to Iris,” Keith whispers back, and Lance nods.

“Do you think that’s okay? That we leave him there?” Lance asks, and Allura looks thoughtful for a moment, tapping her chin, before shrugging.

“He’s had plenty of opportunities to harm us or escape but hasn’t acted on them, I don’t see why he would start now. That should be fine,” she mutters, and Keith nods in response, already walking towards the purple lion’s small mechanical form. Lance follows closely behind to help settle Laith into his bedroll, but also because he wants to make sure the both of them are okay. It’s his fault they were trapped in an alien forest for nearly three varga after all. The least he can do is make sure to get them anything if they need it.

 _You just want to be around Laith,_ a tiny voice in his head reminds him, _you’re not his Papa, you just want to pretend to be him, you selfish prick_. Lance tries to angrily wave it away with little success.

Iris lowers her jaw upon seeing Laith slung over Keith’s back, and Lance leads the way into the cockpit, unzipping Laith’s sleeping bag and opening it up for Keith to deposit the unconscious boy into. Then he helps lower him down from Keith’s back, removing his helmet and chestplate so he can be semi comfortable in his armor. He’ll probably wake up with a sore shoulder, but Lance doesn’t want to invade his privacy by doing much more. Keith groans and pops his spine a sickening fourteen times while Lance frets about making Laith comfortable. After zipping the sleeping bag back up and placing the helmet and chestplate on the ground next to the pilot’s chair, he notices the little compartment of clothes he’d seen Laith fishing around in earlier. A moment’s hesitation goes by before he opens it up, grabs the jacket crumpled at the top, and pushes it into the boy’s sleeping bag underneath his arm.

“What’s that?” Keith asks in a quiet voice after Lance is finished, still stretching out his back and arms from the hike.

“It’s a jacket made out of… our… jackets…” Lance pauses, trying to think whether to refer to Laith’s parents as different people from them or not. It’s a strange situation that Lance never thought he would be stuck in, even after being launched into space by a gigantic sentient robot cat. Still, the universe just keeps on surprising them. “I think it’s the only thing he has left of his parents, so I thought—I mean, I’m probably just being presumptuous, it’s not like I _know_ him or anything, he’s just my _son_ from a _different fucking dimension,_ and it might be terrible of me to just be—”

“Lance,” Keith says firmly, and Lance shuts up immediately. Oh, god, he was babbling. He always babbles when he’s nervous, even in his thoughts. “Stop overthinking it,” Keith adds, placing a hand on the Red paladin’s shoulder. Lance has to resist the urge to roll his eyes. He might as well have said ‘stop having blue eyes,’ or ‘stop being Cuban.’

“Besides,” the Black paladin says, and there’s that unfamiliar softness Lance noticed earlier, “I think it’s sort of sweet.” Lance whirls around to see Keith gazing sweetly at Laith’s face, closed eyes and curly brown hair spilling over the stolen pillow. He must’ve said that without thinking, Lance thinks, and immediately feels like he’s intruding on something. He was probably never meant to see this softer side of Keith that he keeps hidden so expertly.

“Uh, thanks,” Lance says awkwardly. Keith seems to snap out of his reverie, his gaze darting away fast enough to make him dizzy. There’s a faint blush decorating his cheeks, but it’s probably from the lingering exertion of carrying a fourteen year old boy for hours. Guilt pools in Lance’s brain once again at the thought. Keith coughs.

“No problem,” he responds, just as awkward. There’s a strange, tense silence that follows, and it’s obvious that neither of them want to leave just yet, reluctant to leave Laith alone. Is this how his parents felt the day they went to space and disappeared? How long have they been gone? Lance hopes it hasn’t been too long, Laith deserves to have a perfect, happy family.

“Do you feel like… a weird sort of connection to him?” Lance asks, the words tumbling out of his mouth before his brain can wrangle them back in. He immediately cringes at the _stupidity_ of the question, of _course_ Lance is the only one who feels like that, Keith probably thinks that it’s super weird, let alone that he brought it up.

“You feel it too?” Keith asks, surprised. Well this is unexpected, Lance thinks, turning his gaze—which has drifted back to Laith without his knowledge—back to Keith. He’s looking at him with a strange sort of fascination, causing Lance to squirm.

“Yeah, like… I want to protect him, or something,” Lance says, and Keith nods enthusiastically.

“I thought I was the only one! Weird, huh? Must be some sort of subconscious paternal attraction having something to do with our DNA. I sometimes feel physically sick imagining him upset or hurt,” Keith says, starting out vibrant but his tone quickly follows suit with his frown.

“I feel that too,” Lance says, “I thought I was gonna barf when I saw you come out piggybacking him unconscious.” Keith grimaces and shakes his head.

“I hate it,” he says. “It makes me feel… vulnerable.” Lance’s eyebrows raise at this. Keith? _Vulnerable_? He would never!

“How so?” he can’t help but ask. Keith shrugs noncommittally.

“It’s like I’m not in control of how I feel and act. Like, I know that if I saw him in danger, I wouldn’t even _think_ before I’d be rushing in to rescue him. And I know from experience that action without thought is an extremely slippery slope into really shitty situations.”

Lance nods solemnly and turns back to Laith, his long eyelashes fanning across his cheeks in pretty strokes of dark brown. His freckles are faint but still very much there, and he has thick, shapely eyebrows. This kid is an alarmingly accurate combination of him and Keith, which then adds to the question of _how_ they procreated. That thought leads to Lance imagining a world where he and Keith are _together_ and _in love_ which is just so bizarre that he almost laughs out loud.

“I wonder what we’re like, in the future.” Lance says instead.

“Yeah, I mean, we must be pretty different if we actually… fell in love,” Keith says, and the last bit sounds like he’s trying to say it around a shot of lemon juice. Lance laughs an awkward, barking laugh.

“No shit,” he chuckles, his heart rate climbing into record speeds for absolutely no reason. Why doesn't he feel so flustered all of a sudden? A quick glance in Keith’s direction tells him that the Black paladin is equally as tense, his posture stiff and his face pink. “But other than that, I’m seriously curious. Like, what do we do for fun after the Galra have been defeated and there isn’t the constant threat of an attack taking up all our time? Do you think our hair eventually turned white from all the stress? Am I still keeping up my skincare routine? I have so many questions,” Lance says, gesturing wildly. “I mean, apparently I have _tattoos._ Tattoos! How hard did my Mama kick my ass after that, I wonder?”

Keith laughs, and something uncomfortable and warm spreads through Lance’s body at the sound. Then he sighs and rubs the back of his neck reluctantly. “We should probably head back out, knowing Allura she’s gonna want a full debriefing about what happened,” he says. Lance lets out a puff of frustrated air and nods.

“Alright, let’s go,” he says, bending over to ruffle Laith’s hair. It’s like a reflex he can’t control, he’d done it last night as well. His mind wastes no time surging up with accusations of _impostor_ and _wannabe_ and _worthless._ It almost takes his breath away. While he’s so wrapped up in is beratement of himself, Keith bends down and to Lance’s extreme shock, pinches one of Laith’s freckled cheek affectionately before turning out towards Iris’s jaw. Lance stands still besides Laith, stunned.

“Wh—?!” Lance sputters. Keith whirls around, an odd sort of panic in his eyes

“What’s wrong?” he asks immediately. Lance makes a choking noise and gestures towards the child sleeping on the floor. Keith raises an eyebrow in question.

“What was that?!” Lance shrieks before remembering to keep his voice down. “What was that?” he repeats in a whisper.

“What was what?” Keith asks, stepping away from the doorframe. Keith, touch-starved Keith. _Keith,_ the same guy who literally pulled his _knife_ on Lance once when he put his hand on his shoulder and startled him. But now he _voluntarily_ is giving out affectionate cheek pinches? Maybe _Lance_ is the one that fell through into a different dimension, because this can’t be real.

“You pinching his cheek!” Lance whisper-shouts. He’s still trying to process what he just saw, the image flashing through his mind on loop.

“So? What about it? You did the same thing!” Keith hisses defensively.

“No, I ruffled his hair! And besides, I’m me! I _always_ do that! But I’ve never seen you voluntarily engage in human contact unless it’s during a fight!” Lance’s incredulousness is a full scale theatrical performance now, with angry hand motions and exaggerated facial expressions to emphasize. Keith steps closer, now fully invading Lance’s space.

“Yeah, so what?” he challenges. Lance is about to begin a full on tirade when there comes a knock on the metal doorframe. They turn and see Pidge perched at Iris’s jaw, looking impatient.

“Can you two lovebirds hurry up? We wanna talk strategy while Laith is asleep,” she growls. Lance’s face heats up, and he prays to any god that will listen that his skin is dark enough to cover the blush. Pidge will only see it as an opportunity. He stalks past Keith and Pidge turns away, trusting that they’ll follow her. Lance throws a jokingly menacing glare over his shoulder.

“This isn’t over, Keith. Now that I’ve discovered your secret touchy-feely side, I’m never gonna let it go,” he promises. Keith shakes his head in dismay, a faint dusting of pink decorating his cheekbones. _He must still be exhausted from that hike_ , Lance thinks. But whatever, it looks good on him.

Wait. What?

“Lance, come on,” Pidge demands irritably, as Lance has stopped frozen at the mouth of the Iris lion. It looks good on him? Did he really just think that?

“Uh, sorry,” Lance sputters, jogging down to keep up. But his thoughts are rolling a mile a minute. He plops down on the rough dirt beside Allura and the Blue lion where Krolia, Hunk, and Coran are beginning to clear out a place in the rocks for them to set up camp. They aren’t ready to start flying anywhere yet, seeing as their plans to get back to Earth are momentarily stalled with their team’s newest addition.

“Lance, Keith, welcome back!” Coran says cheerily, leaning up against an impossibly large boulder that Hunk somehow managed to roll out of the way to form their camp site. That guy’s strength is absolutely terrifying sometimes. “How is Laith?”

“He’s doing okay, but he’s really worn out,” Keith explains, sitting down next to Shiro. The former Black paladin smiles tiredly and nods.

“That’s understandable, he’s having one heck of a week,” he sighs. The rest of the group nods solemnly.

“I still can’t believe I’m an aunt,” Romelle laments from beside Allura, stroking Platt’s head with one finger.

“And I’m a grandma,” Krolia adds.

“I’m a _father,_ ” Keith emphasizes. “I literally never imagined that happening. Ever.” Lance’s eyebrows shoot up, suddenly very interested in the conversation where he was previously too distracted by the randomness of his thoughts. Thinking something looks good on Keith? Ridiculous! The _audacity_ his brain possesses never fails to astound him.

“Really? You never pictured having a bunch of little Koganes running around? Not even once?” he asks in disbelief. _Everyone_ has fantasized about a future family at some point, right? Apparently not, because Keith is shaking his head. “Why not?” Lance says, earning from Keith an exasperated sigh.

“Well, first of all, I’m _gay,_ Lance. So even if I _were_ to find someone I would tolerate spending my entire life with, it would be kinda hard to actually start a family with him because two dicks don’t make a baby.” Lance blushes. As flirty as he can be, he’s always gotten flustered during talk of sexual activities like some sort of twelve year old. It annoys him to no end. “And second of all, I wouldn’t make a good dad. There’s no use choosing to raise someone even though you know you’re gonna fail.”

“Keith, you could be the best father in the world for all you know. It isn’t fair to make that assumption without ever trying,” Shiro scolds. Keith just rolls his eyes, looking like he wants to say more, but he’s stopping himself. Lance’s eyebrows furrow. Is Keith hiding something? He looks uncomfortable, and maybe a little… sad? Did Shiro strike a nerve or something? Lance makes a mental note to investigate further once this little team meeting is over.

“Wait, I want to go back to what Keith said earlier, about two… _things_ … not making a baby. I’m confused.” Romelle pipes in, blushing a little at the implications. Lance’s blush becomes furious, remembering when Romelle had explained her backstory about how she’d lost her parents at a moderately young age. Did she never have the sex talk? Would they have to be the ones to explain it all to her? Would it have to be now? Lance just might dissolve into a boiling, embarrassed puddle.

“I, too, am rather perplexed,” Allura adds. Oh no, not her too! Teaching Romelle about the birds and the bees is one thing, but the _princess?_ It’s all too much. Lance doesn’t even need to glance at Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, and Keith to know that similar uncomfortable thoughts are probably running through their heads. Maybe Keith will do it, he’s the new team leader, after all. It would be funny to see mullet head try to explain the science of The Nasty. “Do humans not use the genitals for procreation?”

“Huh?” Hunk asks. That was not the question they’d been expecting. “What do you mean?”

“Keith said that two male genital regions cannot make a baby. So do humans have other means of reproduction? Do you perhaps have an asexual system in your biology instead? As far as I was aware, ninety percent of nonbacterial alien life procreate the same way Alteans do—using the genitals. It’s interesting that humans are so similar to Alteans in so many ways, yet they appear to fall into the odd ten percent.” Allura rattles off, extremely scientific for talking about sex. Lance feels a little lost in all of it, and he steals a glance at the other humans present to see if it’s just him being stupid. Fortunately, all of the other paladins look equally as perplexed.

“No, humans use the genitals for reproduction too, it isn’t asexual,” Shiro says slowly, as if chewing on the words, trying to untangle Allura’s meaning.

“I _wish_ it could be asexual. Then I could start an army of Pidgelings,” Pidge pipes in. Hunk grimaces.

“Please never become a parent,” he begs. Pidge shrugs.

“Like I said, I could only do that if it was no sex required. I’m not about that life,” she says. Hunk’s shoulders sag in relief.

“Then what did Keith mean when he said male couples cannot produce young?” Allura asks, interrupting any thoughts straying from the topic at hand so abruptly the air seems to stop.

“You mean two guys can make babies on Altea?!” Lance shrieks. Allura, Romelle, and Coran nod, as if it were obvious.

“It’s the same for the Galra,” Krolia says in a monotone, and Lance suddenly remembers that she’s Keith’s _mom_ and she’s been hearing _all of this._ He blushes again, and if his face gets any hotter he’d be able to fry an egg on it. “That’s probably how Laith happened, with Keith’s genetics, it could be possible for—”

“Holy Quiznacking _SHIT!_ ” Lance screams. Keith looks like he’s being chased by a demon, struck by lightning, and shot sixteen different times by a taser simultaneously. Shiro looks very pale, Pidge is already rolling on the ground cackling her guts out, and Hunk looks like he’s trying not to laugh for politeness’ sake but failing miserably. Krolia and the Alteans look very out of the loop, glancing between the humans and wondering why all of this is such a big deal.

Lance points at Keith with one hand, the other slapping over his mouth as if he’s trying to stop the words from coming out because if they’re spoken, that means they’re true. “I GOT YOU PREGNANT!” he cries. At this, Hunk completely loses his composure, flopping onto his back and letting out loud, whooping belly laughs. Pidge’s chest is heaving helplessly as she gulps in breath after breath between endless bouts of giggles. Keith has completely hidden his face in his hands by now, and Shiro looks like he’s aged a thousand years to match his hair.

“I fail to see what the big deal is,” Krolia says coolly, clearly unaffected by the current states of the other paladins, “Keith, pregnancy is a wonderful privilege.”

“ _Mom,_ please,” Keith all but sobs, lifting his gaze from his hands to glare at her. Krolia turns away, shrugging.

“Oh my god,” Pidge gasps, wiping tears from under her glasses, “this is the best thing that’s ever happened in this shitty war.”

“I have to agree,” Hunk says apologetically, though the effect is rather unnoticed through his hearty chuckles.

“I wonder what the exact biology is that makes Keith differ—”

“SHUT UP!” Lance and Keith shout at the same time, effectively cutting off whatever mortifying biological tirade Pidge was about to go off on next.

“Sorry Allura, it’s just—with humans, only a male and a female can produce children. So hearing that was a little jarring,” Shiro apologizes, sounding defeated. It’s like he’s already just accepted that weird shit happens in space, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

“How intriguing!” Allura says gleefully. “I’d love to hear more, but I think there are other, more pressing issues at hand.” Lance groans. He doesn't think he’s gonna be able to pay attention to a single word of strategy talk, not with images of a domestic, pregnant Keith swimming through his headspace. Unbidden, a picture of Keith in a pink apron with his hair tied back, belly bulging, cooking eggs on a stove in his childhood home pops to the forefront of his mind. Lance makes an audible choking noise, his whole body wracking with shudders. It’s just too _weird!_ Male pregnancy is the fangirl shit from those Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy fanfictions he got really into reading in middle school, not _real life!_

“Allura’s right. We don’t have a single clue about what to do from here. I mean, what do we know about inter-reality travel? Is Laith gonna be okay with the time dilation between his dimension and this one? What if he starts de-ageing?” Pidge chirps, punching some numbers into an orange tablet she pulls from the wrist plate on her armour. She makes a frustrated noise then shuts it off with a _click._ “This whole situation is just too abstract! I can’t make any sense out of it.”

“I think Laith will be fine, he doesn't seem any worse off and my scans from when we first found him didn’t show any problems with his quintessence.” Coran adds. “It might be good to get him in the pod again for a checkup every couple days, just to make sure he remains stable.”

“Okay, we can do that. Will the state of his quintessence tell us if he’s de-ageing?” Shiro asks, and Coran nods.

“Yes, I have some statistics saved in the pod’s data for what should be the normal quintessence signature of someone his age and species. If they don’t match up, it’ll only take a bit of searching to discover the root of the problem and hopefully, a solution.” Something Coran says makes Lance start, the gears in his head spinning wildly. He wants to say something, but he can’t remember what about it gave him pause.

“What are you guys talking about?” comes a voice from behind them. Lance turns to see Laith, rubbing his face sleepily. There’s a line on his cheek from where the wrinkles of the pillow pressed against his skin, and he’s changed into a pair of jeans and his jacket. An annoying surge of affection rushes through Lance, but he tries to ignore it. Laith probably hates him now, after he screwed everything up and made him so upset he felt the need to get as far away as possible (even if that meant sprinting at full speed into a scary purple alien forest).

“Hello, Laith. How are you feeling?” Allura asks cautiously, as if she’s afraid he’ll bolt at any minute.

“I’m okay. And… I’m sorry for running off like that,” he awkwardly kicks at a rock on the ground, scratching the back of his head. Then he looks up, violet eyes piercing into Lance’s blue ones. “And for yelling at you. I don’t think you’re dumb or immature. I shouldn’t have said those things. I’m sorry.” Lance’s shoulders soften, and he feels his heart begin to fill with a tender, soft feeling. Like dandelion fluff in the wind, like fine, silky sands of sun-warmed Varadero Beach against his toes. It feels like creamy mango sorbet melting on his tongue and hours spent tossing his own Papa’s shredded paperwork in the air like confetti. It feels like home.

“Aw, it’s okay bud. C’mere,” he says, holding his arm out without thinking. Is Laith okay with this? Will it just make him more sad that it’s Lance and not his Papa with him right now, offering a hug? Lance’s self deprecating worries are cut off by Laith’s shy sideways smile—he must’ve gotten that from Lance—and a nod. The boy takes the couple steps forward to close the gap between the two of them and sits down next to Lance on the dirt. Laith puts an arm around Lance’s shoulder and he reciprocates the motion, pulling him in and ruffling his curly brown hair with his free hand. Laith giggles, and the gooey saccharine feeling increases tenfold.

“So what’s the scoop?” Laith asks, pulling away from the embrace’s complicated knot of arms, but he keeps his shoulder leaning against Lance’s side, and Lance leaves his arm lazily draped around Laith, keeping him close. At the question, Lance’s thoughts start searching again, he’ can’t quite put his finger on it, but it feels like they’re all missing something. It’s like trying to catch a spiderweb in the wind; he can see parts of it when it catches the light, but sometimes it flickers out of existence completely only to partially resurface again a split second later, gone the next. It’s an infuriating feeling.

“We’re discussing any potential side-effects that may come from inter-dimensional travel, we want to make sure that—”

“Oh, there aren’t any,” Laith cuts Krolia’s explanation off with a little wave. “Trust me, my dads did research about this. Unless I’m in the quintessence field, there’s no scientifically reasonable way that matter can be transformed—for good or for worse—between realities,” he explains as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. Laith’s mention of travelling through the quintessence field sets off another alarm bell in Lance’s mind, but of course it goes nowhere. He’s still reaching for something that isn’t there. Pidge blinks at him dazedly, trying to pick out parts of his words that she can understand and then pull apart with her mental information filter.

“What do you mean by ‘scientifically reasonable?’” she asks, and Laith holds his hands out to begin a more in-depth analysis of his idea. Lance likes it when he gets animated, using his whole body to speak. With the addition of him and the theatrical Romelle to their team, it makes him feel less weird for constantly doing the same thing.

“Well, it’s just physics. I mean, sure, inter-dimensional travel is a little bit tricky seeing as it’s been far less explored than any other branch of physics, but the same laws apply. We all know the base rules, matter and energy can be neither destroyed nor created, an object in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force, whatever. The fact that you’re travelling to a different dimension does not change the laws of physics. I’ve still got all the same physical properties whether I’m in Kentucky or on the moon. It wouldn’t make sense to say that my matter could degenerate like in some weird de-ageing sci-fi movie, that’s like suggesting that if someone were to run fast enough, their hair could turn purple. My atomic properties and the dimension I’m in are two completely unaffiliated forces of nature. So no, it would not be scientifically reasonable to assume that just because I’ve been taken to a different place, my matter will start changing all on it’s own.”

“So like, Newton’s law of universal gravitation combined with the Anderson Candy Necklace model? Of course!” Pidge cries, smacking her forehead in a ‘duh’ gesture. “I can’t believe no one has ever thought to integrate those two studies into one. That’s pretty smart, Laith.”

“Oh, it wasn’t me. It was them,” Laith says, pointing to Keith and Lance with a shrug. “You guys have been named ‘two of the greatest minds since Albert Einstein’ by like, fifty different authors and journalists.” Lance’s eyes practically bug out of his sockets.

“Really?” Keith asks. Laith nods. “Well then I’m definitely be disappointing everyone when I ask what this Anderson Candy Cane thing is?”

“It’s the Anderson Candy _Necklace_ model, and it’s awesome,” Hunk corrects.

“More like _sweet,_ ” Lance adds, and the entire circle groans.

“Okay, well, what is it?” Shiro asks, and Hunk perks up.

“Oh, it’s this theory by this crazy scientist back in the 150’s, Iseyah Anderson. She was a single mom with a PhD in Astrophysics _and_ Nonlinear Physics, but she liked to talk about parallel realities a lot—which back then weren’t commonly accepted as, well, existent—so people didn’t really pay much attention to her even though she was a _genius._ But one day she was watching her kid chew on a candy necklace—”

“Like those powdery bracelets you’d get on Valentine’s Day in second grade? They tasted like shitty Smarties?” Lance cuts in.

“Yeah, exactly like that. Anyways, the candy beads are strung along a stretched-out piece of elastic string so that when you bite a bead off, all the other ones fill in the space it left behind. I think it’s like, a trick to make them look like they last longer or something? I don’t know. But anyways, she was watching her kid bite off the beads one by one, and watching as the other beads filled in the space each one left, and in that second came up with the Candy Necklace model. Her theory is that our universe is like one big candy necklace with infinite beads on it, each bead is a different reality. So whenever a reality gets destroyed, the other realities immediately fill in the gaps, but we can never run out because it’s _infinite._

“She first introduced the idea that it would be impossible to get to the end of the known universe even with technology that could travel faster than the eternally expanding starscape of space. Iseyah’s thought was that even if we _were_ to hit the edge of creation, we’d just hop right into the next bead over on the candy necklace. Essentially, we’d enter a different reality. We might not even know that we reached the edge because they blend together so seamlessly with the tight elastic band wrapping us all together.”

“And according to Laith, future Lance and Keith made the connection that if our universe is actually _infinite_ universes all strung together, then Newton’s law of universal gravitation could also mean the law of inter-dimensional gravitation. Essentially, gravitation and all the other fancy laws of physics are the same across the entire universe and every dimension it encompasses.” Pidge adds, bouncing her knees excitedly and pounding furiously across her tablet. “I mean, the reason so many people have discounted the parallel universes theories over the years is because of that big unknown; what if physics is different in different realities? It’s such an abstract concept to imagine that scientists have had an incredibly difficult time finding solid evidence supporting the existence of alternate realities!” Pidge’s head whips up from the tablet, amber eyes alight. “Oh, this is so good, I _have_ to tell Dad and Matt about this when we get back.”

“We Alteans had a similar theory back in the day, except instead of a candy necklace, it was berries on a Kwortza bush! Once you picked one off, they’d always seem to grow back immediately!” Coran chuckles. “The ancient Alteans once thought that the Kwortza had its own endless supply of quintessence in their roots, and it was said that eating a porridge made from the roots could heal all ailments.”

Several dots connect in Lance’s head at once. Endless supply of quintessence, that’s _it!_

“Lotor!” he shouts suddenly, the realization taking his breath away. “It’s Lotor!”

“Lance, we left Lotor in the quintessence field. He’s as good as gone now—” Hunk says, but Lance cuts him off.

“No, see, that’s the thing! All this talk of quintessence got me thinking about how we never actually _killed_ him. We just blasted him with magical Gatorade until his body got overloaded, right?” He’s practically vibrating with excitement, flailing his arms wildly. Holy _shit_ why didn’t he figure it out earlier? Why didn’t anyone _else_ figure it out earlier?!

“Yes, that’s correct,” Allura says carefully, peering at him with curiosity and concentration, “If this ‘magical Gatorade’ you’re describing is just an Earthen term for quintessence, then yes.” Lance grins like an adrenaline junkie.

“Guys. I think _he’s_ the big bad Beast Laith is always talking about!” he says, throwing his hands out like he’s presenting a fancy school project, or the end result of an elaborate magic trick.

“Who’s that?” Laith pipes in, nudging Lance’s ribcage with his elbow.

“You don’t know who Lotor is?!” Romelle cries incredulously. “Surely I’ve told you all sorts of stories about how we kicked his butt and sent him to his fiery death inside the quintessence field, right? If I don’t talk about it every night, I’ve failed you as an aunt.” Laith shakes his head.

“You guys don’t talk about the war very much. There’s a big emphasis on the concept of an everlasting present,” Laith explains. “I only found out more after reading through my parents’ writings after they disappeared.” How long have his parents been gone for, Lance wonders. Judging by the confident way he speaks of future Lance and Keith’s discoveries, he must’ve had some time to pour over their studies. How long has he been without his family? Days? Weeks? Months?

“Oh,” Romelle says. “I suppose that makes sense. But if that’s true, then there’s no way that the other Lance and Keith haven’t thought of Lotor being the Beast. They seem too smart to forget about it, so they must’ve disregarded the idea long ago, otherwise I’m sure Laith wouldn’t be so clueless about him.”

“No, wait, tell me more about this Lotor guy,” Laith cuts in urgently, his eyes flicking back and forth as if he’s mentally rereading something, taking in clues. His nose scrunches up cutely, scattering the map of freckles across it like pebbles splashing into ocean water. Then, like a maple leaf amiably drifting from its mother tree’s branch in the vibrant red autumn, the tension unfurls from his face and is replaced by an excited, dawning comprehension. His eyes open wide, the vibrant violet rippling with the ecstatic light of realization and his dark eyebrows shoot up like bullets. His mouth goes slack, opening and closing like it's trying desperately to choke up the words that flutter through his mind too quickly for him to wrangle back in. Laith’s espresso colored curls bounce exaggeratedly in the violent way his head snaps up, cheeks pink with shock and elation.

“Lotor—is he a Galra who spent prolonged time inside the quintessence field?” he asks, the words falling from his lips in a rush. His knee bobs up and down with his nerves so rapidly it appears to be vibrating. He taps his fingers against his thighs in impatience, looking between the paladins before him with an imploring urgency.

“Yes, he’s been alone in there for about two months now,” Keith responds after a moment. “Does that sound familiar?” Laith’s entire demeanor becomes exponentially more jittery, exhilaration fuelling him as he leaps to his feet, pacing back and forth fast enough to create dust clouds in the heavy dirt.

“Yes, _yes!_ It all makes sense now!” he cries, whirling around to grin at Lance, the smile so pure and full of enthusiasm that its brilliance steals his breath away. He runs his hands through his long curly hair almost frantically, his smile widening as tears begin to form in the corners of his eyes. “I was so stupid to not see it before, holy shit!” he squeaks, his knees trembling with the weight of his own delight.

“Laith, what is it?” Allura asks him, standing up and holding a cautioning hand out. The last time he got this worked up he’d run off and it had taken vargas to find him again. Sure, the reason behind it was more negative than this extreme outpouring of glee, but she couldn’t be too careful. Laith shakes his head, dropping his arms from his hair like they're made of lead, his head tilting back to glare at the endless sky.

“I know where you are,” he whispers as tears draw their silvery tracks down his pale cheeks. “I know where my parents are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol sorry to anyone who is weirded out by Mpreg, I promise that’s the last of it for this fic!! I just had to establish how Laith exists with all his combined attributes from his parents. Also, I thought that scene was funny, so I didn’t want to cut it. Thanks for sticking around! I can't believe this is my first fic to hit 20k! so exciting!
> 
> come say hi on tumblr!  
> http://wesurecara.tumblr.com/
> 
> support me on ko-fi!  
> https://ko-fi.com/wecara


	4. All the Wrong Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.” - Thomas Pynchon

 

“Really?!” Pidge is the first to break the silence, breathless as she and the rest of the paladins sit bolt upright. “How?”

“I know where they are!” Laith repeats, his tone giddy. “And if it weren’t for me coming to this dimension I probably never would have figured it out, thank you so much!” his words tumble out like white water rushing from a waterfall.

“What do you mean? What happened?” Lance interjects. Everything seems to be flying by so fast, first they were on their way to get back to Earth, and suddenly he finds out that he has an interdimensional son flying a sixth Voltron lion. It’s part of Voltron’s code to help those in need, no matter what, so of course they aren’t going to stop until they find a way to get Laith back to his dimension. Still, he never thought it would happen so quickly.

“The Kwortza bush! You said ancient Alteans believed that the branches were like the quintessence field, and the berries were the realities invented from it, right?” Laith babbles, pacing again.

“Yes, that was the belief. Of course, it’s impossible for their roots to _actually_ have reached down into the quintessence field, it’s on a completely different plane of reality,” Coran explains. Laith giggles and rubs his hands together with pure elation. Fresh tears spring to his eyes but he wipes them away. Then he spreads his arms out wide, a wicked grin on his face.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and other alien creatures, I just made history,” he announces in an excitedly panicked gasp. “My parents integrated Newton and Anderson’s theories to create an entirely new idea. Now I’m combining those and the Altean fable of the Kwortza bush—something that nobody on Earth has ever had access to an therefore could never comprehend. But now… Now I’m _here_ and I got to hear you talking about it and I…” Laith trails off, his breathing now becoming rapid. He sounds like he’s panicking, choking on the realization.

Keith’s heart clenches at the sight. He knows the feeling. After finding Krolia, he’d been too far into the thick of battle to completely comprehend it, but once they landed in the Quantum Abyss, everything seemed to come crashing down. All at once, he had a _mom_ and she was _alive_ and _loved him._ It had felt too good to be true, but it was also completely terrifying. Epiphanies, no matter how positive, are hard. Keith isn’t going to let Laith run into another alien forest to deal with it on his own.

Before he realizes what he’s doing, Keith is standing up and marching towards the boy, who is still pacing as his breaths eat away at his throat. He gently reaches forward and pulls Laith’s hands away from their frantic yanking of his hair and massages his palm with small, affectionate amounts of pressure.

“Hey, it’s okay. Breathe in for four, hold for six, and release for eight. Good, now do it again.” Keith instructs, carefully observing Laith’s struggle to follow his instructions. After a couple shuddering breaths, Keith guides him to sit down on the ground. Lance shuffles closer as they’ve landed beside him, but he refrains from reaching out and touching him, knowing from experience that people having panic attacks don’t need any extra stimulation. Keith continues to instruct Laith to breathe and tell him that he’s safe and his parents are safe and everything is okay.

At long last, Laith composes himself, rubbing his eyes with frustration. “Sorry about that,” he mutters, his voice raw. “I don’t know what happened. I was just thinking about my parents and I started going crazy.” Keith smiles sympathetically.

“You’ve never had a panic attack before?” he asks, still massaging Laith’s hand. The boy looks up, blinking owlishly.

“Oh, is that what that is?” he mutters quietly enough that only Lance and Keith really hear it. Their heads snap up in unison, locking eyes over Laith’s head. Dripping from their facial expressions is nothing but pure concern. “No. I mean, yeah, I guess that same kind of thing happens all the time since Dad and Papa have been gone. But I don’t know why or when it’s gonna strike, y’know? Sometimes I’ll just be cooking dinner or something stupid like that and then suddenly I can’t breathe and I feel like I need to run as far away as possible.”

“Do you live alone?” Keith asks worriedly. If Laith doesn't know what he’s been going through, Keith hopes there’s at least someone who does and who can help him through it all. Laith shrugs.

“Grandma Krolia and Aunt Romelle come over every week or so to check on me, but for the most part I prefer to be alone. It’s just… easier.” Laith drops his head down to his chest, avoiding any and all eye contact. Keith’s chest _aches._ So he’s really been all alone? This kid, younger than Keith was when he was left to live on his own after being kicked from the Garrison, has been doing it all by himself, desperately pouring over his parents’ studies and searching for _some sign_ that they aren’t gone forever. Keith knows how it feels, to completely isolate yourself with grief, to sink into the black hole of endlessly feeling everything all at once and yet nothing at all. To devote your entire existence to one cause, one hidden mystery, one phenomenon whose resolution is _just_ out of reach. Because if you don’t have _something_ to occupy your mind, the sorrow and the loss and the pain will eat you whole.

“Every week or so… Jesus, Laith, how long have we been gone?” Lance asks quietly, interrupting Keith’s dreary spiral. Then he clamps a hand over his mouth as if horrified by the words, as if it were a demon possessing him and forcing him to say them rather than his own stray thoughts. Beside them, Laith stiffens and wraps his arms tightly around his torso, pulling his hand away from Keith’s in the same motion. Lance scrambles in pursuit of an apology, obviously stricken. It was an innocent enough question, Keith doesn't quite understand why the Red paladin is getting so worked up about it. Sure, it was a little blunt, but the question would have to come eventually. It’s not like they could avoid it forever, timelines are extremely important to knowing how they’ll get Laith back. Still, Lance stutters out, “I’m sorry, that was inconsiderate—you don’t—I’m really sorry, I—”

Laith mumbles something under his breath, the words barely a whisper. Then his fingers tighten over their grip in his jacket and he shakes his head, as if snapping out of something. He raises his chin, violet eyes scanning the circle with pure hurt swimming in their depths.

“Two years,” he says, louder. “I haven’t had my parents for two years and four months, to be precise.” His voice cracks, and he closes his eyes, but no tears come. It’s as if the wound has already numbed again after being ripped apart so mercilessly by false hope and heartbreak in the past few days.

Lance goes cold. Laith was a twelve year old _child_ when his parents—when Lance and Keith—left him all alone. Lance is absolutely horrified, filled with an absolute anguish for this little boy, for _his_ little boy. He’s absolutely disgusted with himself, and once glance at Keith’s paled face tells him that he’s feeling the exact same way.

“Two years?!” Hunk cries. “I thought it was just like, a week, or something!”

Laith shakes his head.

“It doesn't matter, though. Because now that I’m here I have a way to get them back.” The boy scowls with determination. Lance is still reeling from the news. _Two years._

“Okay, care to share?” Pidge prompts gently, clearing the momentary silence that had washed over the group.

“Right! Uh, where was I…” Laith shakes himself, as if shrugging off the weight of the previous conversation. Lance knows that it won’t fall off like a cloak from his shoulders, though. It’s just going to topple into his emotional tightly corked bottle, black and swirling, desperate to get out. Eventually it will escape, and when the cork goes ricocheting across the glassy walls of the mansion in his heart, the shards will stick into his insides, puncturing his lungs and scraping his stomach. Lance can only hope that maybe, just _maybe,_ the kid will let him in enough to slowly uncap that bottle and pour some of that stormy darkness into his hands where they can share the burden and lessen the pressure.

“Right, the kwortza bush!” Laith exclaims, sniffing and wiping his eyes then flashing a wry grin. Lance frowns at the obvious attempt to hide his pain. “I was just thinking about what Coran said, how there was basically quintessence connecting all the realities. And a candy necklace has to have a string running through it, right? In Anderson’s model she didn’t really specify how they were all held together because it’s an infinite loop, but what if the quintessence field—which no one on Earth knows the existence of—is the string?”

“Holy shit,” Pidge breathes, her eyes sparkling like they do when she’s finally cracked an especially difficult Galra security code. “That makes a lot of sense, because every reality has to have energy, and they’d get that energy from the quintessence field, and they have to be connected by _something,_ so in order for all of them to have quintessence _and_ be joined together…”

“The quintessence field would have to be in the middle,” Hunk interjects excitedly.

“And if the quintessence field is connecting every reality, including ours and Laith’s...” Shiro mutters.

“Then the static reality that Laith went through is just a gateway into the quintessence field!” Allura squeals.

“Exactly!” Laith cries. “And since Iris has more AAT than the original Red and Blue that my parents were piloting, they must’ve been unable to cross through into another dimension!” He grips at the fabric in his jeans excitedly. “Dad and Papa are in the quintessence field!”

“This is incredible, Laith!” Hunk laughs before his smiling expression morphs into one of confusion. “But uh, what’s AAT?”

“Oh, right, sorry. I keep forgetting you guys are like, a billion years in the past,” Laith apologizes. “It stands for Alchemic Altean Technology. Basically it’s an extra little _oomph_ of Allura’s energy that acts as a security measure in case one of us runs into the edge of the fabric of the universe or whatever. I don’t understand the exact science of it since it’s like magic or whatever, but basically the more AAT a vehicle has, the more resilient it is against quasi-magical forces of reality.”

“So since Iris had enough AAT to survive whatever brief trip she had in the quintessence field and to push the two of you into the next reality over, you ended up with us,” Lance clarifies.

“While the other Lance and Keith are still in the old Voltron lions which aren’t equipped with that technology,” Coran adds.

“Meaning that they’re still stuck in the field…” Keith mutters. Nothing can survive for long inside the quintessence field without being corrupted by the raw amount of life energy, they know that from Zarkon and Haggar’s experiments. So what does that mean for his and Lance’s other-dimensional counterparts?

“That still leaves the question of how the static reality exists in the first place,” Allura’s voice cuts through Keith’s train of thought, and he’s grateful for the distraction from the grim topic. “And how did you manage to get into our dimension? I get it with the AAT giving you a little boost, but shouldn’t it have been impossible without another gateway on our end? Sure, you passed into the quintessence field in your reality because the fabric had been weakened by the Beast, but how did you get into ours? Since we’re years behind you, there shouldn’t be any places where that’s possible. It takes an incredible amount of energy to create a dimensional rift, and the last time I put that much energy into a ship, it was Lotor’s. I find it difficult to believe that the Allura of the future was eager to create more of that technology. If she’s anything like me currently, she’s never going to take that risk again. Ever.” As she explains her concerns, Allura’s hands fall into her lap where she starts wringing her fingers in distress. Coran rubs her back comfortingly.

“Yeah, you’re right. There haven’t been any sorts of ships created with the purpose to cross into the quintessence field or rupture reality or anything like that. Since my dads were studying tears in the fabric of reality, I always wondered why Allura couldn’t make a ship to do it. Now that I know about Lotor, though, I guess it’s understandable that she didn’t.” Laith clarifies, then takes a deep breath. “But this is where shit hits the fan.”

“Language,” Keith mutters at the same time as Lance gasps as if scandalized, lightly flicking Laith’s ear.

“Ow, _Papa_!” Laith whines, but his giggles betray that he’s more amused than annoyed. “That’s my good ear!”

 _“¡Me importa tres pepinos!_ You are fourteen years old, where did you even pick up that kind of language?!” Lance scolds, before his face transforms into one of shock and horror. His head whips up and he puts his hands over his mouth, eyes wide. “I sound like my Mami,” he whispers, mortified, as Pidge unhelpfully pipes in that she’s been swearing like a sailor since age ten. Shiro scowls and mutters something about Matt under his breath.

“I called you Papa,” Laith mutters in a similarly unsettled tone, meeting Lance’s gaze with his own hands clamped over his mouth. After a moment, he brings them down to awkwardly fiddle with the sleeves of his jacket. “Uh, I’m sorry. That was… awkward, wasn’t it?”

Lance’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise and he tears his hands away from his face to wave frantically in front of him, blushing. “No, no! It wasn’t—I mean, I don’t mind if you—well, if you want—I mean—” the Red paladin flounders, only succeeding in making the situation more tense. Does Laith _want_ to call him Papa? Would he feel sad if Lance said it was okay? Lance wants to help the kid out as much as he can, but is he ready to be a father, even just as a temporary stand-in for the real thing? As the questions whirl through his brain and he struggles to find the right thing to say, a large gloved hand comes down on his shoulder. Lance looks up, coming face-to-face with Keith, who has shifted to sit behind the both of them. He wears a soft amused smile, his grey-violet eyes sparkling with some fond emotion Lance has never seen in them before.

“Hey, guys, calm down,” he orders kindly, and Lance realizes with a start that he’d still been rambling. Laith uncurls from the tense, uncomfortable ball he’d slowly been tucking himself into, looking up at Keith through furrowed brows. The Black paladin smiles at the boy, which seems to dissolve any other tension left in his posture. “Laith, I think I speak for the both of us when I say that it’s… it’s okay to treat us like your parents. We aren’t uncomfortable, we just want to make sure that you’re happy. Whatever makes you feel best will be best for us, too.” Keith explains, glancing over at Lance from time to time in order to check and see if the Cuban boy wants to add or object to any of the things he says. Lance simply nods along, each time they make eye contact he sends as many _thank you_ vibes as he can muster.

Laith smiles shyly, then nods. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” There’s a long pause where the three of them gaze at each other, smiling softly at their newfound emotional stability.

“Guys, as much as I love all this Klance family action, I’m still extremely curious about what Laith was going to say before Lance went all Cuban Momma on him,” Hunk interjects, shattering the silence.

“Yes, I agree,” Allura nods, “but what is Klance?”

“It’s Keith and Lance’s names combined. Their couple name,” Pidge says simply.

“Aw, why does Keith get to be first? Why can't it be… Lanceith?” Lance whines.

“Because that sounds dumb,” Pidge notes, a blunt edge to her voice. “It’s gotta roll off the tongue.”

“Okay, fine. What about… Laith?”

There’s a beat of silence.

A very _long_ beat.

“Holy shit,” Pidge whispers. Lance and Keith’s eyes go wide as Laith and Pidge begin to laugh uncontrollably. “You named your fucking _kid_ after _yourselves,_ ” Pidge gasps between giggles, “why are you two such gay _disasters_?!”

“This is exactly how you reacted when my dads introduced me for the first time, you should see the baby videos,” Laith laughs. “They tried to defend themselves by saying it’s an Arabic name meaning ‘lion,’ but there’s really no excuse. You’re just uncreative.”

“It was definitely Keith’s idea” Lance scowls over at Keith who throws his hands up exasperatedly.

“ _You're_ the one that wanted your initial to go first!” Keith accuses, pointing at Lance sharply.

“Yeah but you thought that Kosmo would ‘tell you his name when he was ready!’ So obviously you know nothing about naming children!”

“He’s shy!”

“He’s a _dog_ , Keith!”

“Ladies, please, you’re both pretty. Can we get back to business?” Hunk groans, “I’m seriously dying to hear about this metaphorical shit hitting the metaphorical fan.” Lance groans then scowls viciously over at Keith.

“Fine, but we’re _talking about this later,_ ” he spits, and Keith nods with an equal amount of venom in the gesture. Laith laughs.

“You two have always been like this, huh?” he mutters quiet enough that only Lance and Keith can hear him. Before either of them can react, the boy has turned back to the group with a grim expression. “There’s something you don’t know about quintessence yet,” he explains, “I don’t really know much about this either, my parents _just_ started looking into it like, the week they disappeared.”

“Okay…” Coran murmurs. “If there’s anything we Alteans haven’t heard before, I’d be more shocked than King Groggery the fortnight after Scarlet Sun! But please, continue.”

“No, trust me, this is something very few people know about. The only reason we’ve heard anything is because of a chance encounter with a druid laboratory near the war’s end.” Laith shakes his head soberly, not reacting to Coran’s strange metaphor. “We all know about Zarkon and Honerva’s… transmutation… into the monsters they are today, and how it was a byproduct of their prolonged exposure to an endless supply of quintessence, right?”

“Yes, in order to accommodate the immense power from the field, their bodies were altered into more beastly versions of themselves,” Allura says with a somber nod. “Quintessence is not inherently good nor evil, but can grab hold of the negative aspects of a person and greatly accentuate them, leading to corruption.”

“Right. Well, the Galra didn’t stop there. Once it was discovered that quintessence could transform the mind and body, they wanted to see what it could do to the soul. My parents believed that these discoveries had everything to do with the Beast and how it got its power to destroy pieces of reality.” Laith says, his throat tightening slightly. “I think that they were going out to study that exact thing when they disappeared.”

“So you’re saying that if Lotor is the Beast, then that means that his _soul_ is being corrupted?” Lance asks, brows furrowing. “Pardon me for not being quite able to wrap my head around that. I mean, what even makes a soul?”

“How philosophical of you, Lance. Care to determine the meaning of life while you’re at it?” Keith teases, to which Lance responds by sticking his tongue out. Laith smiles warmly at the two, entranced by something pure and brilliant. Then he frowns, appearing to realize where he is, and shakes his head to release the spell. He takes a breath, then continues.

“Since the Galra weren’t the only ones with true, uninhibited access to the quintessence field technology, they wanted to keep it a secret should the Alteans catch on to the same train of thought. So they opened up a handful of covert experiments across the universe, in places that could be hidden in space-time pockets.”

“Like Ulaz,” Shiro breathes, pain flickering across his face. Laith nods.

“Right. They hid the laboratories so well, with so few of the Galra knowing about it, that team Voltron probably wouldn’t have found out about them at all without accidentally stumbling across one on a routine border check of the 64-Illa sector that you’d recently liberated.”

“64-Illa?! That’s one of the furthest charted sectors of the known universe! It’s just a breath away from falling into a complete void!” Allura cries incredulously.

“Or,” Laith interjects, “it’s exactly in the right place to have complete access to the quintessence field without the unstable creation of a rift.”

“The Candy Necklace model,” Lance says, his voice alight with comprehension. “They’re at the end of our bead! Right up against the elastic string in the middle!”

“So they had uninhibited access to the field? How did we miss that?!” Allura exclaims, turning to Coran. “How did my father miss that?” she asks, softer this time. Laith crawls over to her, placing his hand on her knee.

“There’s no way you could’ve known without the combination of Earthen, Altean, and Galran sciences. There’s no way anyone could’ve known without dominating half the universe and _stealing_ that information from others,” he says comfortingly, and Allura nods, smiling sadly.

“You’re right, thank you Laith.” There’s a silence as she places her cool hand over his and squeezes gently, blinking rapidly as if trying to fight tears. Then she sits up straighter, her face now hard and determined. “But now we know, and we have the element of surprise on our side. We can win this war, and get Laith and his parents back all in one fell swoop.”

“We’ve got a cute little interdimensional cheat sheet with us now,” Hunk gushes adoringly, lunging over to lift Laith up in his arms and twirl him around.

“Woah, okay,” Laith stutters as Hunk throws him around like a rag doll before squeezing him tight to his bulky chest.

“I know we’ve only known each other for a couple days but I already feel like a proud uncle?” Hunk gushes, the statement comes out sounding like a question. “I’m just so thrilled by your smartness!” Laith pats Hunk’s shoulder awkwardly, his Keith side shining through.

“Uh, thanks buddy. And I do call you my Hunkle in my dimension so—oh, okay we’re doing this again,” Laith’s statement is interrupted by Hunk gasping with delight and twirling Laith around in the air once more, and nobody misses the way the Yellow paladin’s brown irises glimmer as he grows slightly teary-eyed.

“Omg Laith what am I called?” Pidge asks excitedly, leaping to her feet.

“Did she just say ‘omg’ out loud?” Shiro asks, mostly to himself. Hunk finally places Laith at his feet, and the small boy wobbles a bit, slightly dizzy, before turning and pointing to the Green paladin who is practically buzzing with excitement.

“You’re affectionately titled Grammy Gremlin, and you call me your Gremlin-In-Training.” Lance groans as Pidge begins to laugh.

“I can’t believe future Pidge is infecting my future kid,” he laments and Keith nods solemnly in agreement. Laith swivels on his feet, pointing to Allura and Coran.

“Allura, you’re Auntie Ally or Aunt Allura, depending on the situation. Coran, you’re Great Uncle Gorgeousman, and Shiro, I call you Jiji Shiro.” Allura smiles delightedly upon hearing Laith’s otherworldly title for her, and Coran puffs his chest out proudly while twirling his mustache. Shiro, however, looks crestfallen, shooting a venomous glare at Keith who falls onto his back, shoulders shaking with laughter.

“What’s so funny? I don’t get it,” Lance says with a frown, looking over at the increasingly agitated expression on their leader’s face and the increasingly hysterical expression on Keith’s.

“Jiji is—” Keith gasps, erupting into another fit of laughter, “Jiji is a Japanese term for grandfather.”

“Aww, Shiro’s a Grandpapi?” Lance coos teasingly as Shiro turns his laser glare to him.

“At least he’s not calling me a gremlin!” Shiro grumbles as his defence, but Pidge just giggles—sounding alarmingly like a gremlin.

“Alright, paladins, please. Let’s stay on task. What are our next steps?” Allura interjects, patting Shiro’s shoulder soothingly.

“I think it’s obvious, isn’t it? We need to get over to that secret base and have Pidge extract their intel,” Keith says, folding his arms. “They don’t think that anyone knows about their precious little labs, so they probably don’t have very heavy security. It’ll be easy!”

“Keith is right for one part, the security on the labs are sparse at best. They can’t afford to have too many Galra working there just in case they ever are captured and tortured for information. But it _won’t_ be easy. Granny Gremlin says that the encryptions on that base were the toughest she’d ever encountered in the entirety of the war, and the place is crawling with druids. We can’t just run in guns blazing. It’ll have to be a sneak attack.” Laith explains, his mouth set in a line.

“Well, I did it, didn’t I?” Pidge says flippantly. “Did future me tell you anything about what steps she took?” she asks hopefully, but Laith shakes his head.

“No, sorry. Even if she—you—I don’t know, even if she had, I don’t think I would’ve understood it. All she said was that it was extremely difficult and frustrating and that she hit a lot of dead ends before having to reroute herself back to the start. She said it was like a puzzle, but yeah. I guess she did end up finding a way through it, so it won’t be a problem for you, I’m sure.” At this, Pidge’s eyes sparkle and she smiles bashfully.

“I guess I should do some brain games to exercise,” she mutters with uncharacteristic shyness, and Laith nods encouragingly.

“Okay, so what’s our plan?” Lance asks, clapping his hands together contemplatively. “We need to get to that top-secret base, sneak in, let Pidge do her nerd thing—”

“Hey!”

“—then use the info to break into the quintessence field, somehow stop the Beast from ruining Laith’s dimension, and then get Laith _and_ his parents back home. Easy peasy?” As Lance continues, the morale of the group grows dimmer and dimmer until it’s a mere speck of its previous glamor. Suddenly the task ahead of them seems a whole lot more challenging than just liberating a Galra base. They’ve done that countless times with no problems. But now there will be druids, and lots of them. Along with an opening into the quintessence field, universe-changing intel on quintessence and the soul, Laith’s gateway back to his family, and the risk of exploding the entire candy necklace and sending the beads flying into an empty void.

So, yeah. _Extremely_ glamorous.

“Easy peasy,” Keith confirms, his eyes hard. “We’re the defenders of the universe, we’ve got the strongest weapon ever created! We’ve evaded the druids before, we can do it again. Besides, the team Voltron of the future completed the same mission. Why should we think that it’ll be any different for us now?”

“Keith is right. We have completed impossible things, and we’ve grown so much since you first left Earth. I have complete confidence in us all,” Allura declares, earning a whooping cheer from Pidge, Lance, and Hunk. Romelle claps excitedly, and Krolia sends the team an encouraging grin.

“Alright team. I say we take the rest of today off. Laith, do your best to remember _anything_ you can about the mission. Tomorrow, we’ll go over your information and compose a plan.” Keith announces sternly, his Black paladin voice taking over. Lance can’t help but look at him in awe. Keith has grown exponentially since the beginning of Voltron, a broody and temperamental teenager no longer. Allura’s right, they _have_ changed, and Lance smiles at their ragtag group of young soldiers from all different races, species, and backgrounds with such immense fondness that it threatens to crush him.

“Then after that, it’s go time,” Lance adds, throwing an arm around Laith’s shoulders. The boy looks up at him, a brilliant smile gracing his features. Lance smiles back, then tilts his head up to the sky. “Let’s kick some quintessence ass!” he cries, and his friends’ resounding cheers echo back, melting into the alien clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the wait, I'm trying to make sure that this story is as good as it can be, which means that I had to revise some of the plot and make sure I'm working on it while nothing else is on my mind so that the writing is in tip-top shape. Longer chapters to come, so buckle up! thanks for all the support, y'all are my faves!
> 
> (edit): TRANSLATIONS:  
> "¡Me importa tres pepinos!" - "I care three cucumbers!" It's a Cuban slang term sort of like "I don't give a fuck!" except it's cucumbers instead of fucks because Cuban Moms are not profane lol.


	5. Stupid Brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don’t you think?” - Mycroft Holmes, BBC’s Sherlock

 

Laith has felt extremely unhelpful in guiding the paladins to what was, in his dimension, one of the most important and dangerous missions of their entire lives. He’s followed them across the universe, listening in as they plan out as far as they can without knowing much about it beforehand. Every once in awhile, one of them will ask him about the mission’s specifics, and Laith will have to tell them that he just doesn’t know. He’d never thought to ask his dads about which gas giant was nearest to the lab or whether the druids had fighter ships stationed around it as security. All he knew about the specific battles his family had to go through was what little he’d picked up from the occasional eavesdropping on his parents murmured conversations when one of them woke up from a nightmare. History books were in the making, but Laith’s birth was close enough to the end of the war that not much detailed media had been created for him to read.

Fortunately, he’d been able to direct the paladins towards the rust-colored gas giant called Corls-X40, but only after Coran had rattled off the names of sixty different planets in the 64-Illa sector in hopes that Laith would recognize one. After arriving at the space pocket Hunk managed to track down by doing some reverse-engineering of the coordinate signatures they’d found at Ulaz’s base, Laith was also able to recall a snippet of a conversation between Papa and Granny Gremlin about how the entrance to the lab was ‘just like Ulaz’s except, like, in reverse.’ From there, Pidge had been able to pull up the path they’d traced into Ulaz’s space pocket and change the route so that it was a perfect inverse, allowing them to safely pass into the base without being sucked into the immense gravitational pull of Corls-X40. They’d all ridden in Green so they could be camouflaged, but even with Green’s small and nimble form it had been a delicate dance. But at long last Keith, Lance, Allura, and Pidge are inside.

“No alarm bells yet,” Keith’s voice crackles through Iris’s comms. Laith feels like he’s going to vomit. Logically, he knows that this Keith is not his Dad, and that the team from his dimension has already completed this mission with zero casualties. They’re all still standing strong. But it doesn’t stop the lurch in his stomach upon hearing _his Dad’s voice_ through the robotic lion’s speakers, reporting about his status on a _life threatening war mission._ His family fought, survived, and won a war. Sometimes he forgets what that means.

“Good, but stay on your guard. We don’t know what these druids are capable of,” Shiro responds from the Yellow lion, stationed just outside the precarious entrance to the space pocket. Hunk, with his lion’s massive bulk, has been deemed lookout and external support on the off chance that Galra fighter ships come along to try and foil their plans. Shiro offered to go with him as an extra pair of eyes and the added piloting expertise just in case they needed to perform some quick maneuvers, and Hunk had gratefully accepted. Keith and Lance are the more nimble fighters, so they’ve been chosen to infiltrate the ship along with Allura and Pidge, who will be the ones extracting the data. Allura will use a couple alchemic wards she’d learned from Oriande as a last magical barrier between Pidge and the druids, while Lance and Keith are to cover them from the outside in an attempt to take out as many as they possibly can. The hope is that Allura won’t need to use her magic at all, but Laith can’t help the harrowing feeling that he’s just sent his young parents to their deaths.

“We’re landing now, switching from Green over to helmet comms,” Keith reports.

“Copy,” Shiro responds.

“Laith, any last words of wisdom before we blow this popsicle stand?” Lance chimes in, his voice sounding a bit more intimate as his microphone switches from the one inside the Green lion to the one inside his helmet. Laith shakes his head, trying to even out his breathing.

“No, sorry. Just good luck wishes,” he says apologetically, his voice carrying a slight tremor. Lance makes a nonchalant _that’s too bad_ sound, as if he’s just walking into a difficult test rather than one of the top five most dangerous tasks the paladins ever completed, then sighs.

“Well, that’s all a guy can ask for, isn’t it?” Lance asks rhetorically, his voice soft as he tries to soothe Laith’s aching heart. “Thanks buddy.” Laith tries but fails to swallow around the lump in his throat.

“No problem,” he responds. It comes out in a frightened near-whisper. Behind him, Romelle and Krolia stand anxiously peering over his shoulder in the pilot’s chair while Coran flits about the screen to Laith’s left, running through calculations, maps, and thermal scans quicker than Laith can catch onto. Iris is small, so her cockpit is cramped, but Laith is glad for the company. He’s used to having lots of people around him at once; everyone team Voltron had met across the universe had become part of his family in one way or another, from aliens in faraway galaxies to old Garrison classmates of his parents’, they were all acquainted with the son of the original Red and Blue paladins and they all seemed to just _adore_ him.

Or at least, that’s how it had been two years ago, before his parents left. Since that awful May 8th, Laith has completely isolated himself from almost everyone. Only Grandma K and Aunt Romelle remain as constants, checking in every week to bring him food and ask if he wants anything, if he’s okay, if he wants to go grab some grub with the others sometime. The answer is always the same: ‘No thanks, but maybe later.’ Aunt Ally and Great Uncle Gorgeousman checks in from time to time to bring him silly souvenirs from the planets he’d been touring, and Laith keeps them all on a shelf in his room. Granny Gremlin pops up occasionally with a Star Wars DVD and the type of popcorn you can cook over the stove as if it’s in a pan—she says it tastes the best—and they have a movie night together. Sometimes she brings Hunkle or Jiji Shiro, but never more than three people at a time, as Laith’s previous comfort found from the all-encompassing compassion of his family has felt suffocating since his parents’ disappearance.

Now, however, he craves the companionship of his family like nothing he’s ever felt before. It’s almost as if the thought of losing this dimension’s installments of his dads has triggered something in Laith that’s made him revert back to his default settings. Either that, or he’s started to find normalcy once again in the feeling of having his family, intact, surrounding him—which doesn’t feel right to him.

“Okay, we made it in,” Pidge reports, scurrying inside the looming metal doors of the lab. It looks surprisingly similar to all the other Galra bases they’d invaded in the past, Pidge was under the impression that a top-secret lab would be at least a _little_ more unique, but apparently not. The same erie purple glow cascades across the gunmetal halls for illumination, the same holographic scanners with—thankfully—the same technology are stationed to the left of each door. Keith, with his Galra heritage, is able to press his hand against the scanner and get them in no problem.

“Alright guys, try to be quick. It’s gonna take Pidge at least half a varga to decode, so we need to cut down on all inessential travel time,” Keith commands quietly into the headpiece, and Laith hears the Green paladin make a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. She’d been extremely annoyed to hear Laith admit how long it was supposed to take, especially considering that the longest she’d spent on a Galra decode mission was just over three dobashes. And that isn’t including the time it takes for the data to load to 100% on her tablet. They estimate that it’ll take almost a full varga for Pidge to finish extracting the data, which sets everyone’s nerves on edge.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Lance murmurs, and Laith’s heart jumps into his throat. He’s heard those same words from his Papa’s lips before, on a summer night when he was six years old, eyes flying open to the sound of Dad’s panicked yelling coming from down the hall. He remembers lying there, cheek pressed against his blue and white striped pillow, snuggled under the quilt his Abuela made for him, ears straining to hear what was going on as his heart roared thunderously against his chest. After the initial cry of panic, Dad’s shouts fell down to whimpers, and Laith slowly creeped out of his bed, dodging piles of toys and dirty laundry on his way over to his bedroom door.

He eased the painted white door open, fingers clasping tightly around the brass handle to prevent their trembling. Just before stepping into the pitch black hallway, illuminated only by the half moon glow shining through the window at the end of it, Laith reached to his bedside table and grabbed hold of the glass Coke bottle full of some glowing chemical substance that Aunt Allura and Hunkle accidentally created and fashioned into a lava lamp-slash-night-light. He gripped the neck firmly, pursing his lips. It wasn't much in the way of a weapon, but it might do some damage if he could manage to get a headshot on whoever was making his Dad so scared. If someone had broken into their house and hurt his parents, he would do everything in his power to stop them.

His bare feet padded against the dark wooden floor as he crept closer to the door of his parents’ room. Quiet sounds of conversation floated through the air, muffled by the barrier of the picture frame covered walls. Laith pressed his ear against the cool wooden door, brushing his curly hair away from his face as if the chocolate strands were an obstruction to his hearing.

“Shh, hey, I’m here,” Papa muttered soothingly, and Laith caught the sharp, painful sound of Dad’s breath, cutting in and out of his throat in terrified gasps.

“It was—we were—” Dad sobbed, and Papa shushed him.

“It’s okay babe, you don’t have to talk about—”

“64-Illa,” Dad cut him off determinedly, and there was a silent moment as his breathing went muffled. Laith pictured his Dad burying his pale face into the shoulder of Papa’s thin pajama shirt, looping his arms around the darker skinned man’s shoulders in a baby koala gesture that was common for the pair on sleepy mornings. Everyone claimed that Dad wasn’t always as cuddly as Laith has grown up with, but Laith couldn’t picture any other version of the black-haired man than the clingy, affectionate one he’s always known. It just seemed so out of character for him.

Now, of course, Laith is starting to see just how cold and removed his Dad used to be.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Papa had murmured, quiet and gentle as the little waves lapping into the Varadero tidepools. Dad’s breathing slowed as time progressed, and Laith stood frozen, ear pressed against the door as his parents slowly fell back asleep. Laith remained by the door until the sky began to streak lavender and pink with the rising sun, chasing away the stars and bringing forth the gentle sounds of chirping of birds.

That had been the first time Laith awoke to his parents’ nightmares. From then on, he noticed them much more frequently, but as their lives settled into normalcy, and the gap in years from the end of the war and the everlasting present expanded, they became scarce. Just before their disappearance, the nightmares seemed to have tapered off completely. Laith is struck once again at the unfairness of it all—everything had just become perfect when the universe decided that it would fuck his family over once again. _It’s gonna be okay_ Laith’s ass. Nothing is ever okay for the heroes.

“Okay, still no signs of trouble. It’s like, completely silent.” Lance reports.

“Uneasily silent,” Allura adds, causing a chill to shoot down Laith’s spine.

“I can’t get an accurate reading of the base from out here,” Coran says apologetically, still analyzing the images that flit across Iris’s screens fast as a comet. “I’d say just proceed with caution, but keep up your pace. I think the only solution right now is speed.”

“Roger that,” Keith reports, and the comms go silent once again as the sound of security panels being activated and doors sliding open flitters through Iris’s speakers. Each time the team goes through a door, Laith holds his breath, expecting at any moment a shout of alarm as they go through one wrong opening that holds dozens of druids, bodies crackling with deadly violet alchemy.

“Uh, I think we made it,” Lance’s voice reports suddenly, filled with bewilderment and unease. “We’re in a big room, and there’s a control hub, but it’s completely…”

“Empty,” Pidge finishes. “Maybe they’re all on vacation? Or maybe the druids aren’t here yet? It _is_ several years in the past, maybe this won’t be so tough after all? Maybe we’ll get lucky for once in our lives?”

Keith scoffs. “Doubtful,” he growls, “this doesn’t feel right at _all._ Lance, let’s do a perimeter. Allura, Pidge, get started on extracting the data.” Laith frowns at the apprehension in Keith’s voice. “The best thing we can do right now is stick to the plan.”

The feeling of dread in the pit of Laith’s stomach only grows in ferocity as the dobashes go by with minimal updates. Lance and Keith circle the hub, reporting each hall they find empty and meeting up at the entrance to the control hub every five dobashes before branching off again. Allura finishes setting up the barriers quickly as Pidge begins cracking down on the encryptions.

“Oh, shit, future me really knew what she was talking about. This is impossible!” she mutters angrily. “I keep getting booted back to the main screen as if I’m just putting in random numbers like some amateur. Nothing I’m trying is working!”

“Granny Gremlin said it was like a puzzle, remember? Try to keep that in mind,” Laith prompts, and Pidge makes an agitated affirmative noise before the sound of dull thudding from her fingers against the holoscreen floods the comms once more, pairing eerily with the echoing sounds of Lance and Keith’s footsteps.

Down on the base, Lance can’t shake the itching, tingly feeling that he’s being watched. Covertly, he switches his comm channel so it’s just him and Keith before voicing his concerns. He doesn’t want to worry Pidge, who already has enough on her plate. She needs to exert 100% of her focus on the decoding process, she doesn’t need some petty paranoia on Lance’s part to clog her systems.

“Keith, do you have a weird feeling?” he asks tentatively. “I mean, it’s probably just me being stupid, but I feel like there are…”

“Eyes all over you?” Keith fills in for Lance’s lack of words. “Yeah, I feel it too. Keep your guard up. Finish this round of perimeter then meet back at the hub for an early check-in. I think I want us to stick together from here on out.”

“Roger that,” Lance says, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. The fact that he’s alone is definitely increasing his unease, so having Keith there will be a huge comfort. Maybe he’ll be able to stop whipping around so much in search of invisible spies. A loud groan from Pidge as she inevitably hits another dead end distracts Lance for a just a split second, but it’s just enough time for everything that could possibly go wrong to happen.

All of a sudden, Lance’s feet are no longer on the ground but in the air as he tumbles forward, driven by a hard, stinging blow of violet electricity. His cry of surprise comes out strangled as his back hits a wall, knocking the wind out of him.

“Lance!” Keith shouts through the comms. “What was that?!”

Lance rises to his feet, coughing, then switches the channel back so that everyone can hear him. “Druids,” he rasps, whirling around and firing shot after shot from his bayard at the four druids behind him. They simply flicker out of existence with a gentle _whoosh,_ dodging the glowing blue blasts with ease. “I’ve got four of them!”

“Headed your w—AGH!” Keith tries to say, but suddenly a loud _zap_ accompanied by the unmistakable crash of armor against metal cuts him off. “Shit,” he mutters with a grunt, “two over here!” The sounds of Lance and Keith’s struggles mesh with the harsh crackling of the druids’ electric alchemy in a stomach churning sound cocktail. Laith puts a hand over his mouth to hold back the accidental whimper that tumbles from his lips.

“Hang in there, I think I’ve almost— _no!_ Fuck! Shit! Piss on a stick!” Pidge shrieks, “I thought I had it that time— _damn it!_ ”

“Ugh—I can’t get a hit on them! They keep fucking— _agh_ —teleporting!” Lance pants, grunting in time with the crackles and sinister _whoosh_ of the druids’ magic. “Keith, are you close? I could really use some backup!”

As all this goes on through the speakers of the Iris lion, Krolia’s grip on the back of the pilot’s chair grows tighter and Romelle paces back and forth in the limited space of the cockpit. Coran continues to flicker through battle strategies, shouting to Lance and Keith about remaining on defense until he can track down a good weakness to exploit.

Lance makes his way down the hall, shooting blasts from the tip of his bayard even as he knows they have no purchase against the dark magicians. He hates the idea of retreating right towards the entrance to the control panel, right where Pidge is working tirelessly on the most difficult project of her lifetime, right where Keith is battling a couple druids of his own.

“Keith,” he calls, “is it a really a good idea for us to team up? I mean, it’ll be two against six—which are already not great odds—but we’d also be leading Pidge and Allura right into their hands.”

“Too late now,” Keith says, and his voice appears immediately in front of Lance in a flash of Red armor. They immediately swivel so they’re back to back in their practiced battle formation, the movement is second nature.

“Okay, so we’re fighting druids. Coran, any updates?” Lance asks wryly, scanning the hall on his side for the telltale dark, fluttering cloaks and eerie pointed masks. They’re still a ways away from the control room entrance, and Lance breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Hunk? How about that diversion?” Keith asks, anxiety rising in his voice. “Lance, on your six!” They weave through the motions of battle, now that there’s two of them they’re more of a threat against the druids. So far, neither side has landed a shot, but Lance has a feeling that the stalemate isn’t going to last for long, and the original Blue and Red paladins are going to be the ones who suffer from it.

“I can’t do it until you guys are out!” Hunk responds. The Yellow lion was also chosen to be stationed outside the lab because, in the worst-case scenario, he could use the bulky lion to crash and shoot hole in the farthest side of the ship away from the paladins, causing the druids to either evacuate or rush to solve the problem. It’s a tactic they’d used in several previous missions and that they’d thought could be implemented in the startlingly similar architecture of the lab. “The space pocket is _really_ tight on this thing, if I hit it too hard it could rupture the sides and like, I don’t know, spontaneously implode?” Lance feels the blood drain from his face. “If I can hit precise enough, it might remain stable, but only for a short period of time. You guys would have maybe, two dobashes? Three? To get out?” Three dobashes to escape the lab before it implodes? Keith winces, then takes another swing at a druid. It easily dodges his hit, then raises its hand to deliver a magical blast, but Lance takes aim and fires, distracting it enough to Allow Keith to swing with his sword and nick the druid’s side. It wails, clutching the wound, then teleports away.

“Nice one ninja!” Lance shouts.

“You too, sharpshooter,” Keith responds before tuning back in to Hunk’s rambling.

“You’ll have a _little_ bit of time to be in your lions and out of the pocket, but it’s too risky—oh, wait, Coran just sent me some statistics—oh shit, _extremely_ risky. I don’t want to discourage you guys with the numbers but… Yeah. No. The diversion isn’t happening.”

“Okay, Coran?” Lance asks. “Found any weaknesses yet? Or are these guys—Keith, 3 o’clock!—or are these guys just invincible?”

All of a sudden, the remaining five druids flash out of existence entirely. The hall fills with a suffocating silence where the sounds of battle once echoed, and Lance feels his blood run cold.

“Lance, Keith! Are you there?” Allura calls, panicked, into her headpiece. The line has gone deathly silent, and her heart lurches into her throat.

“Uh, yeah, we’re here. But the druids…” Lance says weakly, his words falling out like shards of glass from an old broken window—whispery and chillingly light.

“They just disappeared.” Keith finishes the thought, brow furrowing. The hall remains quiet as the pair shifts in a defensive circle, eyes flickering across the terrain with confused, edged wariness. It’s completely empty.

“I DID IT!” Pidge squeals, “I cracked the code! Now all that’s left is downloading the data.”

“Alright, we’ll be on our way down.” Keith reports, scanning the barren halls one last time. They remain desolate, safe for one quick flutter of pale violet in the corner of Keith’s eye. He stiffens, glancing back to where he’d seen it, but there’s nothing there. To his right, another flicker of light flutters in his periphery, but disappears once he turns his eyes directly towards it. “Lance, do you see that?”

“See what… the fuck…” Lance’s anxious exclamation melts into horror as the flickers of pale purple begin fluttering more rapidly into his vision, their figures solidifying into the muted shapes of druids. The five dark wizards materialize in a perfect circle around the paladins, their hands glowing with a glossy pink essence that they hold out towards them as if they’re casting a spell.

“Paladins, report! What do you see?” Shiro commands.

“I don’t know! The druids disappeared, but now they’re back but they look funny, and they’re standing in a tight circle around us and I think they’re casting some sort of spell?” Lance says warily, firing a few experimental shots from his bayard. They pass straight through them and crash into a pink triangular structure mounted on the wall. He winces, hoping that it wasn’t some sort of alarm system that might call more druids to them.

“They look funny?” Shiro repeats questioningly. From inside Iris, Laith stiffens, leaning closer to the monitor as if being closer to the sound of their voices will bring him closer to the paladins.

“They’re pinkish, sort of like the glow from your old arm except more… glossy? It looks sort of like—”

“Glass,” Laith breathes. He feels like he’s going to throw up, or cry, or both. All other sensations flee from his body like particles shaving away from a comet, tailing behind his one glowing goal as he lurches forward, hands slamming against the dashboard. He feels Iris come to life inside his mind, her panic for the paladins inside flooding through him with the same force as his own. He can’t scream the words loud enough. “ _GET OUT OF THERE!_ ”

“What? Laith, what’s—” Lance asks, the anxiety in his blood increasing.

“RUN! Please, _please_ Papa, you have to run, _run away!_ ” Laith sobs, his voice cracking under the strain he puts it under to deliver the message as emphatically as he can and then some. “That’s photon glass, you need to _get out,_ don’t let it touch you, just push past them and leave!” he cries, fear coursing through him like a drug. Tears drip from his eyes as he sobs out variations of _please, please, please_ and _run, please, you have to run_ like a mantra.

Lance has already ducked under the outstretched hands of one druid, yanking Keith by the collar after him, who seems like he’s deliberating staying behind to fight. The druids don’t so much as turn their heads as they sprint down the hall at full speed.

“Okay, we’re running Laith, it’s okay. They’re doing some sort of spell, I don’t think they even noticed us leave,” Lance tries to soothe the panicking boy, but he doesn’t seem to hear any of it.

“Seventy five percent of the data has been extracted, paladins, hurry!” Allura says as the Red and Black paladins maintain their sprint.

“What’s photon glass?” Keith asks, running beside Lance towards the meetup point in front of the entrance to the control panel.

“It’s a weapon the druids developed near the end of the war,” Laith gasps, his voice shaky as a leaf in a chilly autumn breeze. He’s stopped hyperventilating with such avid panic, but he still sounds absolutely petrified. “I wasn’t expecting them to have it yet, they must’ve developed it in this lab! We don’t know the exact chemical properties, the last of it was destroyed in the final battle. All I know is that it’s extremely hot, a good strike of it once melted Green’s left hindlimb off completely. My parents… never went into detail. But photon glass has been one of the main subjects of their nightmares for years.”

“Yikes,” Lance mutters, the understatement almost humorous. “Good thing we dodged that bullet!”

“Eighty percent!” Pidge chimes in. Laith gasps in alarm.

“No! you haven’t dodged it yet! Don’t let down your guard, that was just the ritual to summon it. Once they break apart they’ll each—” Laith’s warning is cut off by a sudden smooth wail tearing from behind them. The noise is absolutely chilling; a low, tortured moaning mixed with the slide of fingertips over water. With the sound comes a faint lavender glow, illuminating the hall behind them. Lance doesn’t turn around. Laith whimpers.

“Ninety three percent, hang in there for like, three more minutes—er, dobashes—it’s almost there!” Pidge shouts, and Lance can _feel_ the desperate worry in her tone. The sleek moaning noise begins to increase, along with the pale glow’s intensity.

“Lance, duck!” Keith shouts, and Lance complies, bending into a crouch and rolling towards the left wall of the hallway behind an angular pillar just as a swirl of magenta plows straight through where his head was a moment before. The photon glass is beautiful, and nothing like what Lance was expecting. It’s not especially fast, and stretches through the air like a comet, with one larger mass near the front and a trail of transparent waterlike plumes, coiling and curling over themselves in shapes that remind Lance of drops of food coloring in water. It’s almost scary in its perfect, unblemished clarity, but it emits an odd violet light that grows in intensity closer to the head, tapering off with the distorted tail. It bends the shapes of the walls around it like curls of warmth off of hot asphalt, and as it passes by them—even from eight feet away—Lance feels an unbearable, stinging heat across his body. Even through his armor, it feels like he stood too close to a campfire and stayed there for hours. He grits his teeth, glaring at the nightmare-inducing weapon, and for the first time in the whole mission, he wonders if this will be their last.

“Shit, that thing is _hot!_ ” Lance shouts with a wince. Judging by the way his armor stings everywhere it touches his body, and judging by the way that it’s never done that before even when he’s been in _literal explosions,_ he counts himself lucky that he hadn’t had any exposed skin for the glass to boil.

“Yeah,” Keith grunts, and through their comms Lance can hear Laith suck in a sharp breath. “It’s moving slow, at about a speed walking pace, and it sorta looks like it’s searching for us. I can’t see any druids, I think they’re controlling it remotely.” The glass continues meandering down the hall before turning in a slow circle and doubling back like a sentry.

“What?” Laith mutters, bewildered. “From what I’ve heard, each druid controlled an orb of it in each hand and could manipulate it into different shapes and weapons at will. Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah. I don’t even hear the annoying flapping of their robes,” Lance says.

“Must be a rough draft, a prototype of sorts!” Coran says cheerfully. “If they’re still stuck in their little circle, then I guess we’ve found their weakness. Better try to duck out of there without it seeing you.”

“Uh, kinda difficult if we don’t know where it’s eyes are,” Keith says irritably, peering over the side of his pillar to glance at the ball of glass. It floats about three pillars down, then doubles back towards the paladins who brace themselves for its intense heat once more.

“One hundred percent!” Pidge says, and there’s a _blip_ as she removes the tablet from its port on the control panel.

“Once you get past it meet us back over here, we’ll make our way back together so we can all be on the lookout for the photon glass and protect each other,” Allura implores, voice drenched in worry.

“Right, no problem,” Keith growls sarcastically, his cool team leader attitude melting away as he grows more frustrated. “It can’t hear us, obviously, so it can’t be like Haggar’s magic through the Clone Shiro.”

“Maybe… cameras?” Lance says almost shyly, and Keith looks at him from across the hall, quirking an eyebrow. “I mean, think about it. The ball is only circling this one part of the hall, so it must know that…” Lance’s explanation fades out as the photon glass hovers near them once more, the heat growing more and more unbearable each time. He has to physically restrain himself from flailing his arms in front of him and scrambling back. “Ugh—it must know that we’re here, maybe through thermal cameras or something? Like the feeds we grabbed of Matt escaping that prison,” Lance pants once the heat has passed.

“So you think the druids are somehow logged into the security cameras of this place and are controlling the glass based off of that?” Keith clarifies, brows furrowing. He doesn’t seem to believe it. Lance groans.

“Yeah, I do think that. And it’s not just a wild guess either, I think I accidentally destroyed one back with the druids.” the Red paladin says with a huff. “Look, see those two pink pyramid things attached to the wall? One to our left and one to the right?” he gestures, being careful not to duck out from behind the pillar that, apparently, is keeping them hidden. Keith, fortunately, has the sense to do the same, as he tilts his head forward fractionally and his eyes widen. There’s a smooth, glowing proturdance in the wall, similar in design to their Rover only on a smaller scale. Every once in a while, the triangular light on the structure’s tip blinks, indicating a monitor of some sort. The glass wanders over to it, stops, and doubles back. Keith turns his head and notices an identical one mounted on the wall further down the hall.

“The orb isn’t going past them,” he mutters in astonishment, then turns his gaze back to Lance. “How did you notice that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Logical thought processes?” Lance responds with a cocky scoff, even as his heart flutters with happiness at Keith’s blatantly impressed smile. Then he wonders why his heart is doing that. “Now that you’ve seen my incredible deductive reasoning skills, Team Leader, do I have permission to fire?” Lance materializes his bayard, aiming the scope over towards the camera behind them.

“Wait! Don’t hit that one. Do the one up there first,” Keith orders just as Lance’s finger hovers over the trigger. He frowns and lowers the weapon.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because, if we hit the one behind us first, it’ll rush over to the one in front of us because that’s it’s next best viewpoint. Then we won’t be able to get past it. This way we can trap it behind us,” Keith explains and Lance smiles wickedly.

“Then it’s sharpshooter time,” he says, cocking the gun in the opposite direction. He closes one eye, inhales, holds, and aims for the blinking pink structure. Then, the moment he releases the breath, he pulls the trigger. Immediately, a blue blast of light arcs over to the camera, which explodes in a shower of violet sparks. The photon glass orb streaks away from it and towards the working one behind them so fast it leaves a line across Lance’s vision. Not allowing himself to be disoriented, Lance turns, aims, and fires for the second camera. The second his shot hits its mark, Keith leaps to his feet and sprints down the hall, Lance close on his tail.

“Cover my 12!” Lance shouts, turning so that he’s almost running backwards. A few shots at the furious, swirling ball of glass prove ineffective as the light of his laser bullets just seem to melt in with the violet and the orb chases after them with no visible lag. He growls in frustration then turns back forwards just in time to take out another camera. The glass shrieks at the setback, and the noise only gets more intense as he continues to aim, fire, and destroy.

At long last, they skid into the part of the hall that’s widened out into a four-way intersection, the path on their left being the door to the control panel. The door slides open and out come Allura and Pidge, looking determined but frantic.

“Come on, let’s go!” Pidge shouts, and they turn down the hall to Lance and Keith’s right and begin weaving through the halls and towards their exit. No other druids come to try and stop them, which is good seeing as they still have an angry wailing ball of seemingly sentient glass hot on their tail. Lance continues to strike at the cameras they pass, praying that he doesn’t accidentally miss one, thus giving the druids an advantage. He’s not sure how leaving one camera behind would hurt them, especially if they run fast enough to be out of its frame, but something annoying in his gut tells him that they’re getting off a little too easily.

“Paladins, look!” Allura gasps, pointing behind them. Lance steals a glance over his shoulder and sees the glass’s pace slowing, its size and glow diminishing. “I think it’s getting weaker the further it gets from the druids!”

“Better keep going then,” Pidge says with a laugh and a fist pump. “We beat the glass!”

In the short moment of victory, Lance doesn’t notice one small camera, darker than the others they’d seen and nestled closer to one of the pillars as a sort of disguise. If he’d been scanning the hall as diligently as he had been moments earlier, he would’ve caught it and taken it out easily, but due to the completely inconvenient timing, he simply continues on running with the other paladins. He doesn’t notice the blinking triangular structure dislodge from the wall shortly after the paladins pass it, and begin hovering towards them. He doesn’t notice the glass gaining speed in a sort of last-ditch effort to strike, and he doesn’t notice how the darker colored hovercam zeroes in on the paladin closest to the back of the group wearing scarlet armor.

What he does notice, however, is the gentle warmth prickling on the back of his neck grow startlingly potent. His eyes flicker back just in time to catch a whorl of glowing glass, far too close to Keith and _far_ too oddly shaped. Somewhere down the hall the druids, in their final moments with the glass, push all their effort into forming the weapon into a long, whiplike streak of lavender and white. Not giving himself any time to deliberate or weigh his options, Lance’s fiercely protective instincts cause him to shout, push Keith aside, and take a step _backwards._

Papa would later describe that step as the footfall heard ‘round the Candy Necklace. Balancing a tiny Laith on his knee, he’d tell a glamorized version of the great sacrifice he took, not knowing if he’d live or die—and frankly not caring either way as long as Keith was safe. He’d call it an act of true love.

But in the moment, Lance calls it an act of Natural Selection. Because if someone is going to get hit by this beam of fatal druid glass, it’s going to be their weakest link.

That person, in his own eyes, is Lance.

Of course, as the searing heat etches a line across his body so painful and _so hot_ that he can’t even guess its size, he does allow himself to think _okay_ maybe _I wanted to make sure Keith didn’t get hurt._ Maybe it wasn’t just his self deprecation that made him throw himself onto the druid’s sword. Maybe he does care for Keith, just a little.

But the thoughts don’t last long, as his vision goes white with pain, then fades to a merciful black.

 ◊◊◊

Keith doesn’t feel so much as _hear_ Lance push him. One moment they’re sprinting through the halls, just about half a dobash—maybe less—from the exit, the next he’s feeling an intense, burning heat against his back and Lance is shoving him to the ground. One moment Lance is firing at the cameras with a deadly—and strangely arousing—accuracy, the next he’s shouting Keith’s name as the last of the photon glass curls and strikes across the Red paladin’s back. One moment Lance is cheering along with Pidge, the next he’s screaming a scream so gut-wrenching Keith can feel it in his bones.

Lance collapses to the floor, his eyes rolling back into his head as his scream dies out and the photon glass finally fades away, the absence of the hollow moaning making room for the sound of Lance’s heavy, whimpered breathing. The magenta glow is replaced by slick, gushing red pouring from a long cut in his armor, from what looks like his right shoulder all the way down to his left lower back. The metal edges of the cut on his backplate emit a metallic blazing white from the heat.

“LANCE!” Pidge cries, further down the hall as she had been at the front of the group. Allura has already spun around and lifted the pale, bleeding boy into her arms. The movement causes him to groan unconsciously, and blood absolutely _pours_ down Allura’s armor and onto the floor.

“Coran, prepare the healing pod, _NOW!_ ” Allura barks, jogging as swiftly as she can with her limp passenger. Pidge keeps yelling at Lance, searching for a response, and Keith—by some miracle—finds his feet and stumbles after them.

“Hunk,” he says, voice tight. “The druids aren’t casting the spell anymore. They’ll be here any minute and we’ve had to slow down because Lance…” Keith trails off, watching the path of blood that he follows, like flower petals across a wedding aisle, and tries to ignore how his vision blurs at the sight of it. “Lance is…”

“Papa?” Laith whispers so quietly the sound barely registers on the comms. He sounds so _small,_ and Keith feels the same even though he should be stronger because he’s an adult and Laith is _fourteen_ and Lance is…

“Lance is hurt, but he’s still alive,” Allura says for him, saving Keith from perhaps breaking down.

“He’s still… wait, you mean he could _die?_ ” Hunk exclaims in fear and alarm.

“We need that diversion, Hunk,” Keith commands stonily, trying to blink away the strange mistiness distorting his sight. All he can see clearly is the memory of the photon glass cutting through Lance, armor and all. All he can see is the way Lance had _looked at him_ as he pushed Keith out of harm’s way, like he was the most important thing in the world, like Lance would do _anything_ to protect him. All he can see is the trail of ruby red blood paving their path. “The druids are gonna catch up soon.”

“Okay…” Hunk murmurs, clearly in shock. “Are you guys… are you close to getting out?”

“We’re here! The Green lion is in sight, we’ll be up and out of here within the dobash,” Allura reports in a frantic—yet surprisingly calculated—tone as they turn the last corner and see the lion’s glorious spring green coat.

“Alright, prepping explosion now. We’ll all have 1.78 dobashes and counting to be out of this space pocket,” Shiro orders as they mount the lion, Pidge practically flying into the pilot’s seat and lifting off before they’ve even had time to finish putting Lance down on the ground, facedown in order to keep from rubbing the jagged edges of his ruined armor against his wound. Now that they’re sitting still, Keith can see that the cut is actually much larger than he’d originally predicted, stretching from way up high on his neck—nearly hitting his right ear—and curving down to his left hip bone. It’s about three inches wide at the worst part near the center, and bleeding so profusely Keith wonders if he’s ever going to run out.

Once glance at Lance’s pale face tells him that _yes, he will, if we don’t hurry up._

“Please don’t die,” Laith pleads in a breathy whisper, and Keith closes his eyes, tilting his head back against the Green lion’s cockpit wall. _Please don’t die,_ he thinks to himself. _Please, Lance. Please don’t die._ Behind them, a rumbling explosion shakes the lab, and the Yellow lion catches up just as they exit the pocket.

As they fly away from the lab—a lab no more due to the instability of the pocket which collapsed in on itself after Hunk’s explosion—and towards the nearest planet with a breathable atmosphere in order to transfer Lance over to the healing pod, Keith gazes at him wondering if the boy will even make the next couple dobashes. Maybe Lance will die.

An angry, stinging pain lodges itself into Keith’s chest at the thought, and he shakes it away.

_Please don’t die, Lance. Please don’t die._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at long last... the plot chickens...


	6. Flashback I

“Dad?” Laith’s voice sounds from the hall. 

“In the office,” Keith calls back, not taking his gaze from the patch prototype H. The further they venture into the alphabet, the more discouraged they get. If only he could find some way to get the inventions to work from the  _ inside— _

“Dad,” the voice is close now, and quiet. Keith turns around in his chair to see Laith standing, head hung low, behind him. The eleven-year-old’s curly brown hair tumbles over his face, but Keith can still see the way his shoulders are slumped and his fingers are gripping the folded piece of paper in his hands—his son is upset. 

“Bug _ , _ what’s wrong?” he asks softly, reaching out towards the boy who tumbles forwards into his arms and onto his lap easily. “And what’s this?” he points towards the paper, folded haphazardly and crumpled in the slightest. Laith sighs and unfolds the paper, his hair still obscuring Keith’s view of his face. 

“It’s a card for Lily,” he grumbles, disappointment obvious in his tone. Keith is about to ask if it’s his classmate’s birthday when he sees the drawing on the paper. Laith has always been an incredible artist, he and Lance had been recruiting their young son to help draw the blueprints for their inventions for some time now. It isn’t hard to discern what he’s drawn: a bouquet of velvety-looking blue roses surrounded by a pink heart. Oddly simple for Laith’s tastes in birthday cards—he once gave Romelle a three-foot tall portrait of herself and the mice holding a cake on a massive piece of poster board—so Keith turns to the kid with a raised eyebrow. 

“What’s it for?” he asks. Laith turns away, further obscuring his face. His voice goes soft. 

“Her big sister died while she was at college,” he says, and Keith’s heart sinks. 

“Oh, baby _ , _ ” he murmurs, pulling the boy closer to him. Laith’s arms snake around his neck and he buries his face into Keith’s shoulder. He doesn’t cry, just snuggle deeper into the embrace. “It’s very nice of you to make her a card, bug.” 

“No, that’s the problem, Dad!” Laith says, drawing away to hold the crumpled piece of paper up. He stares at it with disgust for a moment, then throws it down. “I don’t know how to do it!”

“What do you mean? That looked really good!” Keith says, “I liked the texture on the petals and—”

“No, that’s not—I know how to  _ draw,  _ Dad. I just don’t know how to draw a card for… this…” Laith gestures vaguely, then slumps back against Keith’s chest. “I know how birthdays and Christmas and happy feelings are supposed to go. But what kind of card can make her feel better about losing her sister?”

Keith’s heart swells up with love. He shifts his position so that he’s completely cocooned Laith in his arms, tucking his chin on top of his son’s head. Laith, just like his Papa, is so heartbreakingly empathetic and selfless. Every bit of joy in the world makes him joyful, every smile is his smile. He’s been raised knowing that it’s okay to cry, and he does so freely during sad movies or sad songs. Now Laith’s empathy is making him draw a card for a classmate, but he doesn’t know the feeling of loss first hand, so he feels like his efforts are inadequate. Keith thanks the stars that his son hasn’t had to go through such grief before. If he’d been born during the war, where every turn was unsafe and bloodshed was a daily occurrence—well, Keith doesn’t want to dwell on that.

“You’re right, that is a hard card to draw,” Keith murmurs. Laith makes a soft noise of affirmation, then goes quiet as he enjoys the feeling of his Dad’s arms wrapped around him.

After a couple minutes of silence, Laith asks, “what does it feel like?”

“Hmm?”

“Losing someone. What does it feel like?”

Keith is still. He and Lance hadn’t wanted to get into the horrors of war with Laith ever if they could help it—even if they knew that he’d start to ask questions eventually. He decides to give a vague answer, hoping that their son doesn’t call him out on his bullshit. 

“Well, it feels very sad, and heavy. And you cry a lot—”

“Dad. Don’t sugarcoat it. I’m not a kid anymore,” Laith commands. Oh, but he  _ is!  _ He’s still that tiny, cooing, smiling child he was the day he was born. But he’s also growing up. Maybe it’s time to face that fact head-on rather than avoid it like he and Lance had been. “What does it feel like for real?” Keith sighs and tightens his hold on his son.

“It’s like… It’s like someone took out your insides, mixed them all up, and put them together again, but they did it wrong. Your heartbeat doesn’t feel right—it’s too heavy against your chest and too light in your throat. Your lungs don’t fill up all the way, and every puff of air is uncomfortable because it isn’t enough. Food doesn’t sit right in your stomach. Sounds are too loud but words are too soft, you can hear people talking to you and their voices hurt but their meanings gets garbled in your brain. You’re hyper-aware of every touch against your skin but it registers a split-second too late, and there’s this  _ ache  _ sitting right here, making your ribs so heavy that it’s hard to move. And the ache is acute and sharp, but it’s like it’s been there forever so you’re sort of used to it now. It’s partially numb in an excruciating way, and everything is half of what it should be. That’s what it feels like.”

Laith is quiet for a while, and Keith worries that he’s said too much. He’d wanted honesty, but maybe it would have been better to keep trying to lie. Maybe Laith isn’t ready yet, maybe Keith messed up on yet another step in parenting. He wouldn’t be surprised—it’s a wonder that Laith is the perfect child he is, what with all the stumbling and falling he and Lance had gone through trying to raise him. 

“Thank you, Dad,” Laith says finally, worming his way from Keith’s embrace. He bends over and picks up the card, examining it, then frowns determinedly. “I think I know what I’m going to do now.”

Keith smiles just as the front door swings open to his husband’s cheerful ‘ _ estoy aqui! _ ’

“I’m glad,” Keith pinches Laith’s cheek, and the boy smiles back up at him. “I love you, Laith.”

“I love you too,” he responds, then turns on his heel and runs up to his room, the card clutched tightly in his hand.

“Why’s he in such a hurry?” Lance asks, panting from his workout. Keith stands up from his chair and meets Lance in the entryway, planting a kiss on his lips. 

“I’ll tell you when you get out of the shower,” Keith murmurs, blocking Lance’s arms from wrapping around his waist. “You’re all sweaty,” he remarks, wrinkling his nose.

“Aw, come on. You love the post-workout glow!” Lance whines, chasing Keith’s lips. Keith obliges him for a moment, then pushes Lance away. 

“Yeah, but not while I’m supposed to be working on our bajillionth patch prototype,” Keith grumbles. “Shower. Now.”

“Care to join me?” Lance asks, suggestively wiggling his eyebrows. He steps closer, looping a hand around Keith’s body and stroking his lower back, sending shivers down his spine. “I know you could use a break.” Keith, despite himself, blushes deeply. His husband chuckles.

“No. Not while Laith is home.  _ Go. Shower. _ ”

“Ugh, fiiine,” Lance pouts, then turns towards the hall. “I love you, stupid.”

“Love you too. Stop stalling. It’s not going to work.”

“Damn. You know me too well.”


	7. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Turn your scars into stars” - Robert Schuller

 

Shiro is leaning against Lance’s healing pod beside Laith, the sun’s heat a pleasant glow against his skin. Still, he can’t quite let himself enjoy the tranquil environment of this uninhabited planet knowing the reason they’re there. 

It had almost been too late.

Shiro shudders as he recalls Hunk’s panicked cries for an unresponsive Lance as he attacked the lab ship’s starboard, how Keith had been murmuring over and over for Lance to  _ please don’t die  _ in his own version of terror. Slipping out of the space pocket to chase after their teammates, hearing their desperate pleas for Lance to stay with them. Turning away and glancing back as the pocket collapsed, warping in on itself in a quick flash of light, then nothing. 

Landing on the the  _ first planet  _ they found, barely even checking to see if it could sustain human life let alone if it contained dangerous natives or Galra or worse. Fleeing from Yellow’s jaws—Hunk hot on Shiro’s tail—to see Coran, Allura, Krolia, and sweet Romelle tugging the pod from the cargo of the Black lion as quick as if it were made of paper. Realizing Black, Red, and Blue must’ve flown beside Green and Iris all on their own. Watching Laith stumble out of Iris, crying for Papa. 

Noticing, not for the first time, how  _ small  _ he is. 

Turning to Green and seeing Keith stride out of her jaws, the limp, pale,  _ bleeding  _ form of Lance in his arms. Feeling sick to his stomach at the sight, thinking  _ we’re too late, we’re too late—  _

Hearing Coran’s sharp gasp, then pitiful-sounding whimper as the shimmering glass closed over Lance’s body. Then hearing the Altean tell them that they’d been ticks away from losing him. 

It had almost been too late. 

They’d had plenty of missions with one or more of them ending up in a pod, sometimes in critical condition. But they’d never been this close. Allura had brought Lance back to life the time they’d been fixing the Omega Shield, but she’d admitted that the only reason she was able to do it was because he’d been electrocuted. If it had been a puncture in one of his organs or the result of blood loss, her powers wouldn’t have been enough to sway the natural order of things. In a way, the blessing of the pods and Allura’s alchemy has turned into a curse. It makes them more daring, more reckless. It also takes away the fear—something that, during war, can be a necessity. Having fear keeps you alive. Fighting fear keeps you brave. The absence of fear keeps you utterly vulnerable. 

Shiro sighs and sinks to the brilliant orange dirt. It’s thick and powdery, but doesn’t give under their weight the way that the soft beachy sands on Earth had. He should be debriefing with Allura and Pidge in the Green lion, going over the data that had almost cost a paladin’s life, but he’s here for Keith. He had stood still as stone beside the pod for nearly a day before Shiro had interjected, telling him to go get some rest. Keith only left after Shiro swore to him that he’d stay beside Lance in Keith’s stead and alert him if there were any updates.  

Seeing Keith that shell shocked had been an absolute terror for Shiro. He’s always known that Keith cares deeply for his teammates—much more than the cold, uncaring facade he had a habit of putting up. It had been comforting to watch Keith warm up to them in the first few months up in space, to watch him laugh openly at Hunk’s goofy faces or their silly food fights. They’re a family, so of course they’re all eating up inside at Lance’s injury. But Keith seems to be taking it a whole hell of a lot worse than Shiro expected him to. 

Perhaps it’s because the glass was aimed for Keith in the first place. In the hours after getting Lance stable, Keith had stonily confessed that Lance had pushed him out of the way of its’ attack. Those were the first—and last—words that Shiro had managed to get out of the Black paladin for a few hours. The guilt must be chilling him to his core. But that can’t be it  _ all _ , right? Lance has shown himself to be fairly self-sacrificing in nature in the past. Everyone—even Shiro—has had their fair share of blows shielded by Lance. It shouldn’t come as such a soul-shattering surprise to Keith, so there has to be something more. 

Perhaps, since Laith’s appearance, Keith has started to regard Lance in a different light. Maybe not romantically, per say. Shiro still can hardly believe that Laith exists at all. Lance and Keith are just too  _ different,  _ too competitive. It’s difficult to imagine a relationship—a  _ marriage _ —being borne from the bickering the two had undergone in the first few months of Voltron. But family has always been a thing Keith craves. Krolia’s disappearance and his father’s untimely death had punched a hole in Keith’s heart so black and unfillable that even Shiro had a difficult time grappling with it. There were times in their childhood that Keith would retreat into that void for no apparent reason, and there was nothing Shiro could do to coax him out of it. He’d just have to wait it out, and when Keith returned to the surface, he’d refuse to speak of the incident. There were some things about him Shiro would never be able to understand, just as there were some parts of his time with the Galra that he’d never be able to express to Keith. 

The introduction of his mother had meant a great deal to Keith, and his time in the quantum abyss with her had done what Shiro never could: it healed most of the gaping hole in Keith’s heart. But there still were scars, and certain exposed pieces of the man that wouldn’t be sewn together as easily, if at all. But Laith being here had changed that. Suddenly, Keith had a version of himself out there whose family was complete. The evidence was a curly-haired boy with purple eyes and pale skin, standing right there in front of them. 

In a flash, Lance became a part of the family Keith had always yearned for. In a flash, Lance became something more. Even if  _ this  _ version of Lance isn’t his bona-fide family, another version of him is. Their Voltron Family is a perfectly valid family, but it’s not the kind Keith sought after. Keith confessed to Shiro one time that Voltron felt like a tree, with roots digging deep into a rich ground full of things worth fighting for. All of them were fighting for their families—Hunk, Shiro, and Lance were fighting to protect the ones they’d left on Earth, Pidge was fighting to find the ones adrift in space, Allura and Coran were fighting in honor of the ones they’d lost. Keith felt like he was still trying to find his roots to rely on, and he worried that a tree with a shallow grip on the dirt would topple in the slightest breeze. He was worried that he’d be the one to make their massive oak fall prey to the storm. 

Krolia was the first of Keith’s roots. Laith and Lance had filled out the rest. If Shiro is right, then Keith will do  _ anything  _ to protect them now. 

“I’m tired of all these new skies,” Laith murmurs almost inaudibly from the other side of the pod. Shiro perks up—this is the first he’s heard from the boy since Shiro tried prompting him to get some rest like Keith. Laith had shaken his head vehemently and said “it’s different for us, Shiro. He’s my Papa.” No one had the heart to disagree. 

“What do you mean by that?” Shiro asks gently, and hears Laith sigh. He’s leaning against Lance’s pod on the other side, so Shiro can’t see his face, but he can easily picture the boy’s frown when he responds. 

“The skies on each planet—they’re all different. It was bright blue on the first planet I woke up on, and it was rich orange on the next, and here it’s almost a greenish teal? I don’t know. It was cool at first, but now it’s just a reminder of how far away I am from home.” 

“Mmh, that’s true,” Shiro agrees, glancing up at the sky in question. The planet is alarmingly flat, only dark orange sands and teal skies for miles. Not a mountain in sight, and no sand dunes to make it look more like an Earthen desert either. “But it’s a nice change of scenery from all the deep dark blackness of space, don’t you think?”

Laith grunts. “Maybe for you, you guys have been living up here for years. To me, space means I’m on the way home. These foreign skies are just distractions.” 

“Perspective is a funny thing,” Shiro responds almost absentmindedly. “It’s interesting to try to step into someone else’s shoes, but we’ll never be able to step into their brains. If you think about it, everyone is always going to be a stranger. The best we can do to break down those walls is to be open-minded and accepting of everyone.” 

Laith snorts softly, then leans around the side of the pod to peer at Shiro. “You know, you haven’t changed a bit.”

“Really?” Shiro asks, raising an eyebrow. Laith nots sagely. 

“Yes. Jiji Shiro is more laid-back than you, but that’s probably because I never see him while he’s working. Once you get to start going to barbecue parties with the gang you get more fun.”

“More fun?! Am I not fun now?” Shiro says incredulously, then frowns at Laith’s blunt shake of his head. 

“Nope. Not that I’ve seen. But you’re just like Jiji in that you take every circumstance and turn it into a learning experience. Like once, Hunkle was trying to fix our air conditioning and the vent fell out of the ceiling and onto his head. It was just a little scrape, but head wounds bleed a lot, apparently, so he was bleeding all over the place and Papa was freaking out. When we told you about it at the next dinner night you compared it to like, illusions of grandeur in the workplace or something. It didn’t make any sense but it also  _ did.  _ It was weird.”

Shiro laughs. “Is it bad that I started thinking as you were telling that story and formed the metaphor in my head before you even said it?”

“ _ Very, _ ” Keith’s voice interjects, and Shiro and Laith whirl around to see the man standing above Lance’s pod, a fond but tired smile on his face. 

“Keith, I didn’t hear you come out. Did you get some rest?” Shiro asks, hastily rising to his feet. Keith’s skin is still fairly pale, and he sports circles under his eyes dark enough to be an athlete’s face paint. But he looks more at ease, his loose posture a stark contrast for the rigidity of earlier. Shiro breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, a little.” Keith turns his gaze to the pod, face turning somber. “How’s he doing?”

“Coran says he’ll be out in the next six vargas or so. Then he’ll be okay,” Shiro responds as gently as he can. Keith nods almost numbly and places a hand on the glass, just over Lance’s heart. They hadn’t had time to put him in a pod suit, so they’d removed the stiff plates of his armor, leaving him in the black suit underneath. Allura had placed a blanket last minute over his chest to cover the blood pooling out from under him ‘for all of our sakes.’ There it remains, though slightly seeped through with red at the edges.

“What about you, Laith? How’re you holding up?” Keith asks, looking up to the boy who’d been peering up at the conversation from the other end of the pod. 

“Same as you,” Laith responds with blatantly false nonchalance. Keith nods, but doesn’t press the vague response. 

“I officially despise the druids,” Pidge growls, stomping from Green’s mouth. “I hated them before, but now I absolutely fucking filled-to-the-brim  _ loathe  _ those masked Hot Topic toilet mistakes. I hope they’re content now that they’ve interrupted my plans and ruined everything.”

“What’s wrong? Did we get the wrong data?” Shiro asks, trying to calm the panic in his voice. If all of that had been for nothing…

“Oh, we got the data alright, no the data is Just Fine sitting in my lion right now. That’s the fucking infuriating part, I  _ have it  _ but I can’t  _ access it. _ ” Pidge seethes, looking about one step away from blowing up. “It’s all in some stupid code that I don’t have the fucking Spy Kids decoder wheel to decipher.”

Shiro’s shoulders slump gratefully. At least they didn’t get the wrong thing. “Don’t worry, Pidge. You Holts are the best decoders out there. Matt told me once that he rearranged, inverted, translated to binary, and then scrambled the Rosetta Stone’s script in its entirety sixty nine times so that the four of you could solve it for family game night.”

Pidge groans and rubs her eyes under her glasses. “Yeah, but that was different! These are alien algorithms that no one on Earth has ever heard of—I don’t have any point of reference. I’d be making up all my own rules as I go!” 

“Why don’t you have Allura or Coran help you? I’m sure one of them could find a familiar pattern. Galran and Altean scripts aren’t too different, and they’ve probably solved lots of royal riddles during the war ten thousand years ago,” Laith suggests softly, and Pidge freezes her obsessive cleaning of her glasses mid-wipe.

“Hang on, kid. You might be onto something,” she mutters, spinning on her heel and marching over to the other lions to find the Alteans. Shiro waves awkwardly at her retreating figure, then pinches the bridge of his nose with a deep sigh. 

“I hope she doesn’t work herself into the ground,” he mutters worriedly. “That was her first break since we landed, wasn’t it?”

“Mmh,” Keith responds, his attention fixed once again on the comatose boy inside the pod, his thumb absently sliding across the glass cover. Shiro’s gaze flits back over to Laith, who has his arms crossed on top of the pod, cheek nestled into the crook of his left elbow. He gazes steadily down at Lance’s face just beneath him, but his eyes are clouded with fatigue. Shiro’s heart churns with guilt as he realizes that these past few days have probably been Laith’s hardest, once again a child has been ripped from their home to fight in a war that Shiro inadvertently introduced. He knows that it isn’t logical to think himself the sole reason for the paladins being involved in the war—the Galra have and always will be the ones to blame for all this destruction and tragedy—but sometimes it’s hard not to imagine how much better off their ragtag group of child heroes would be if he’d taken Adam’s advice and stayed home for the Kerberos mission. Keith would have never dropped out of the Garrison, then found the Blue lion, then found him. They would have never left the safety of Earth for the frigid battlescape of space. 

No, he can’t afford to shoulder so much guilt. It isn’t fair to anyone. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else whose family was lost on a mission to the distant, icy moon. The war would still be raging, the Galra still invading solar system after solar system until even Earth eventually fell to its violet grip. All they can do is focus on moving forward, making sure that the Galra never poisons another innocent world. 

“Shiro, you don’t have to stick around here anymore, you can go talk to Pidge about her data if you want,” Keith says, smiling softly. “Thanks for letting me get some rest. I probably needed it.”

“No kidding,” Shiro mutters with a roll of his eyes. “I  _ have _ been meaning to speak to Allura about some things. Let us know if anything happens, alright?” He claps a hand over Keith’s shoulder, and feels the man lean into it slightly as if he needs the support to stay standing. 

“Yeah, I will,” he replies gruffly, and Shiro shoots him a quick nod—a gesture that expresses more than they ever could explain in words—before turning and walking towards the Green lion’s opened mouth. 

It’s quiet for a very long time. Neither Laith nor Keith want to break the silence as they watch over Lance’s pod like knights guarding castle gates, so they don’t. Eventually, Keith drops down beside Laith, a silent offer of comfort. They aren’t touching, just sitting side-by-side, leaning against the pod. The sandy landscape stretches out in front of them, and the sun makes its trek across the teal sky. Eventually, Laith’s drowsiness takes over and he falls asleep against Keith’s shoulder. For the time being, everything holds still.

◊◊◊ 

It’s very  _ very  _ cold. It’s a cold so deeply ingrained in his flesh he can feel it prickling his bones. But this chill is unique from the kind of cold Lance feels while making snow angels or swimming in a clear lake. The cold he feels now is shifted, numbing. His eyes flutter open to the crisp blue glow of a healing pod. His limbs feel like lead and his breath comes out warm, stinging his icy lips. The moment he can wiggle his fingers, a shimmering wave crosses his vision as the pod cover descends. He groans and sits up to see a starry, forest green sky. A piece of cloth falls from his chest and pools at his waist, and he holds it up numbly to see dark spots of what he assumes to be blood, looking like ink in the altean blue light. 

He blinks to clear away the post-cryo haze, rubbing absently at his shivering shoulders. The lions stand guard around his pod, and the landscape stretches out endlessly. He panics momentarily, thinking the scenery too perfect and plain to be normal. 

“ _ Ay, esta que chifla el mono, _ ” he croaks to himself, mostly to test if his voice is working again. Scanning the barren landscape, he finds that the lions’ lights are out, but that could be because they’re resting. He can’t see another paladin in sight. Just as real panic that maybe he died and is in the afterlife is beginning to seize his heart, he hears a faint rustling followed by a low groan coming from the edge of his pod. He peers over the edge, heart thrumming in his chest, and lets out a sigh of relief to see two figures leaning against the smooth white metal. Carefully, Lance pushes himself up to the other end of the pod, wincing as his heavy, uncoordinated limbs bang into the sharp edges in his attempts to get out. 

Finally, he’s able to swing his knees over the edge, and ease himself so that he’s perched precariously just a few feet from the pair of people. Now, with a better view, he spies the telltale small stature of Laith, his eyelids flickering in his deep sleep. His head is lolled to the side, leaning against the strong shoulder of Keith, whose head rests gently against Laith’s own. His raven locks of hair tumble over his face, shielding his eyes, but his shoulders rise and fall with the slow rhythm of slumber. 

Lance smiles fondly, not quite sure why it brings him such warmth to see the two of them curled against each other, waiting for him to wake up. He’s had his fair share of times in the pod, each time waking to at least one person in the infirmary to catch him. But this feels different. Almost like home. 

Unfortunately, in his happy gazing at the pair, Lance had leaned too far out from the edge and, still disoriented and without a strong sense of balance, he feels himself begin to tilt and then fall. Barely having time to let out a surprised shout, he tumbles off his perch and into the soft ground. His knees and elbows dig into the sandy dirt painfully, and he groans. 

“Lance?” Keith mutters groggily, then again, more alarmed, “Lance!” 

“The one and only!” Lance grunts through a smile, his arms shaking as he attempts to sit up. Keith is by his side immediately, slinging an arm around his waist and pulling Lance’s arm over his shoulder. He helps Lance to his feet, his grip on the boy’s waist remaining firm as Lance steadies himself. “Thanks man,” Lance says, his voice still scratchy from disuse. He flashes Keith a weak grin, and Keith returns it. 

Have Keith’s eyes always been this pretty? In the faded light of the dusty planet, they’re dark and swirling. Lance can’t tear his gaze away. Come to think of it, Keith’s whole face is unusually pretty. Lance has always known that Keith is objectively attractive, that’s nothing new. It’s one of the reasons Lance was always so pettily jealous of the guy. But he’d never noticed how  _ pretty  _ he is—from the dark eyebrows framing large eyes and long eyelashes; the thin, pointed nose; pink, full, and smooth lips, the corners upturned slightly as if they were always made to be smiling but he hasn’t quite figured out how to do it instinctively—Keith is straight-up  _ beautiful.  _

Lance is shaken from his stupor when Keith frowns, his shapely eyebrows furrowing with worry. “How’re you doing?” he asks tentatively, none-too-subtly assessing Lance’s body with his eyes. It’s hard to see anything in the light, so Lance shrugs. 

“I feel fine, just a little dizzy. And cold,” he says lightly. “Mind filling me in on what exactly  _ happened _ ? I sorta blacked out after I pushed you and the glass…” he gestures vaguely, “yeah.”

“Why don’t we go find the others and we can do a formal debriefing?” Keith suggests. Lance nods.

“Sounds good. How’s everyone else doing? Any other injuries?” he asks, brows furrowing. They only have one healing pod left from the castle, he hopes he hadn’t been taking up too much time while another teammate was in pain. 

“Nah, just minor scrapes and bruises—nothing we’d need the pod to heal,” Keith says with a shake of his head, as if reading his mind. Lance lets himself relax just a little bit.

“That’s good,” he says, voice trailing off. He can’t feel anything on his back—not anymore—but he’d seen the blood on that blanket. He’d felt the scorching pain, the  _ hot  _ fiery fury of the glass making its final arc into his flesh. He shivers. He wonders how serious the damage had been, how long he’d been in that pod. He wonders if he’d been close to dying. 

“Lance, I—” Keith starts, but before he can say anything more a small voice mutters something unintelligible followed by a languid yawn. Laith sits up and rubs his eyes, smudging a bit of the rust-colored dirt across his cheek and over his brow. 

“Dad?” he asks sleepily, “where are—oh!” Suddenly looking wide awake, Laith leaps to his feet and steps towards the two, still intertwined even though Lance thinks he could probably stand on his own. The warmth is nice, however, and Keith hasn’t made any moves to step away, so Lance is content with the half-embrace. 

“P—Lance, you’re awake,” he remarks warily. Lance reaches out with the hand that isn’t looped over Keith’s shoulder and ruffles Laith’s hair. 

“Sure am!”

“And do you feel…” Laith gestures awkwardly, pulling a face. Lance can’t help but laugh at the sentiment’s familiarity. Keith has never been great at comfort or sympathy, either. 

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he says gently. “We were just about to find the others for a little debrief. You can go get ready for bed, if you want to skip out on all the boring adult talk.”

Laith snorts. “Adult talk? Please, y’all are barely over eighteen. I’m just as grown up as you kiddos, so yes, I will be participating in the ‘boring adult talk,’ thank you very much.”

“Alright then,” Keith says, slightly breathless with surprise, as Lance begins laughing uproariously. 

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Lance wheezes, attempting to get his laughter under control. “I need a change of clothes and a shower afterwards, so let’s get this over with.” 

The trio starts towards the Green lion, where Keith assumes Pidge is still working with the aliens, Shiro, and Hunk to crack the code. Lance’s legs still feel a bit shaky, but overall he feels normal. He keeps his hold on Keith tight, though. Just in case. Laith trails behind them, yawning sporadically, and Lance tries his best not to be a mother hen and tell him to  _ go to sleep now. _ He didn’t miss the way that Laith stopped himself from saying  _ Papa  _ after Lance woke up. He  _ really  _ doesn’t want to make the kid uncomfortable, but he’s not quite sure what would make him happy. Should he step back and treat Laith as a friend? Or maybe a teammate? Perhaps like a nephew—then its still familial without acting like too much of a replacement. But, as his brother Luis once said, he treats his niblings like ‘a doting grandmother.’ So maybe that’s too much? But he doesn’t know any other way!

_ Ugh, _ Lance thinks,  _ why does interdimensional time travel have to be so dang complicated? _

The Green lion opens her mouth for the three as they approach her, and Lance is immediately flooded by green and blue light and the faint sounds of Hunk’s undeniable footsteps as they grow closer and more rapid with each second. The large Samoan comes barreling from the cockpit just as they step into Green’s jaw, tears gathering in his eyes.

“BUDDY!” he cries, barreling down the metal ramp and sweeping Lance—still attached to Keith—into a bone-crushing hug. “How are you? Are you okay? We were so worried, dude!”

“Yeah, Hunkalicious, I’m cool! Wait—are you crying?” Lance assures with a tease, and Hunk sniffles, burying his face into Lance’s flight suit. 

“Shut up, man. You almost  _ died! _ Of course I’m crying!” Hunk says, and Lance’s shoulders shake with laughter. Finally, Hunk puts Lance and Keith on their feet, but his arm remains around Lance’s other shoulder. “Come on inside, everyone else will be excited to see you awake. Pidge could use a distraction from these stupid Galra codes.”

They walk shoulder-by-shoulder further into the Green lion, Laith trailing just behind them. As Lance’s form gradually gets bathed in the leaf-colored illumination of Green, Laith notices frayed pieces of his flight suit, torn away at the neck. The light travels further down Lance’s shoulders and spine, and Laith sees a long fissure in the fabric, reaching from the side of his neck and curving down diagonally across his back, tapering off almost down to his left thigh. The torn edges flutter with each step, revealing more of Lance’s back and shoulders. 

It’s once he twists his torso to smile back at Laith that he sees the scar. It’s long, wide, and lighter than Lance’s normal skin tone, like a snowy fissure across a freckled landscape. Laith’s footsteps stutter and his eyes widen, his breath leaving him like a punch in the stomach. 

Laith knows that scar.

He’s seen it on Papa every day since he can remember. Peeking out from the collar of tank tops, looping out from the waistband of swim trunks, flashing out from between Dad’s massaging fingertips. When Laith was little he’d lay on his stomach next to Papa as he read books out loud, tracing the massive cut with his small fingers. He’d never really considered how much pain Papa must’ve felt to get it, only that it was just a part of him—like blue eyes and tattoos. His parents are scarred. The weight of that fact had never settled onto him before now. 

“Laith, you coming?” Hunk asks, breaking him from his stupor. They’re several feet ahead of him, turning into the entrance to the cockpit. 

“I know that scar,” Laith murmurs, pointing to Lance. The man in question furrows his brows and contorts his body, trying to see his back. 

“Aw, dang. Did it really scar?” he whines, as if complaining about something as mundane as the weather or a bad hair day. Keith unwinds his arm from Lance’s shoulders to take a step back, as does Hunk. 

“Oh,  _ shit!  _ Yeah, Lance, it did—fuck it’s  _ huge _ …” Hunk cries, stumbling away. 

“ _ Eso dijo ella _ ,” Lance giggles, and Hunk narrows his eyes at him, moving forward to elbow the man in the side.

“Stuff it, Lance. This is… does it hurt?” the Samoan asks carefully, reaching out to touch it, then stopping himself.

“No, I can’t really feel it. It’s a little tight when I stretch but other than that it’s just another scar,” Lance responds, twisting his body around in stretching motions. “Is it big?”

The other three are carefully silent. 

“Damn,” Lance mutters. Then he shrugs and turns back to the path towards the cockpit. “Oh well, chicks dig scars. Come on,  _ aceres.  _ Let’s go draw Pidge back from a self-induced tech coma.”

Still not completely okay, Laith stumbles after them, mind reeling. How are they all so  _ chill  _ about it? Lance has a scar because he had a cut  _ that big!  _ Laith had seen him for just a moment when Keith carried him out of Green, the Cuban had looked almost  _ dead.  _ According to Coran he really was almost dead!

That’s just war, he supposes. Maybe they’re all just used to it. Now he can’t keep himself from running over the depths, widths, and locations of every last scar he can recall on his family members’ bodies. This group of their past selves are relatively new to the war, but judging by the way their skin is hatched across in the future, have a lot more coming. What else about his family does Laith not know?

He glances up at Keith and is comforted to see that the man appears just as stricken as Laith. His eyes are wide and glued to the scar, his steps heavy and slow. Laith realizes suddenly that he hasn’t said a word since seeing the scar. Before he can say anything, however, they reach the cockpit and Lance announces his presence with a loud “Hewwo fwends!”

“Lance, you’re awake!” Shiro says happily as Coran, Allura, Romelle, and even Pidge bound forwards to greet him. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine as a fairy in February!” Lance chirps.

“Lance, my dear boy, did you hit your head on your way up?” Coran asks fearfully, grabbing Lance’s cheeks and turning his head from side to side, inspecting it. “Fairies would be hibernating in the winter months, everyone knows that!”

“Wait, fairies exist?!” Hunk squeals. 

“February is only wintertime for those in the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth,” Pidge points out. 

“Alright, everyone, settle down. There’s a lot to unpack there, but we can get back to it. Lance,” Shiro’s voice softens, “we’re very glad you’re okay.”

“He’s not completely okay,” Keith says roughly. “He’s got a scar.”

“Party pooper,” Lance accuses as the group shuffles around to get a view of his back. Gasps echo from the mouths of their team upon seeing the large expanse of lightened tissue. 

“Oh, Lance,” Allura sighs, sounding heartbroken. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it, guys! The pod can’t always wipe it all away. I’m just glad I healed so quickly and that no one else was hurt,” Lance soothes. “Besides, now I’ve got a cool battle scar to show off whenever I flex.” Lance demonstrates, earning a chuckle and collective groan from the group. 

“Wait, there are times when the pod  _ can  _ wipe it all away?” Laith speaks up for the first time, and all eyes swivel towards him. 

“Yes, Laith! Most times, if the wound isn’t too catastrophic, it can heal the flesh as if it was never broken. But sometimes there’s enough of the original stuff missing that it has to use rougher methods to patch the paladins back to health. It’s why we couldn’t just grow Shiro a new arm,” Coran explains, and Laith feels like he’s going to be sick. 

“How bad does it have to be in order to scar?” he asks.

“Pretty bad,” Pidge supplies, oblivious to the boy’s horror. “Once, I got a full piece of shrapnel stuck in my arm—it went all the way down to my elbow—but as you can see there’s barely a scratch leftover.” She rolls her sleeve up and traces a path from high up on her shoulder down to the bend of her elbow, and Laith sees a faint pink line about an inch long in the middle of her upper arm, where he assumes was the worst of the damage. 

“Oh,” he says quietly. So every scar is representative of the  _ worst possible scenario _ —how many more invisible scars did they have? How did they get lucky enough to never lose a single life? 

“We’ve made it a habit to have one team member critically injured almost every mission, and it  _ isn’t good.  _ We really need to practice caution,” Shiro says sternly. “Especially you, Lance. Allura won’t always be there to bring you back to life when you die.”

“I know, I know. Don’t worry, Shiro. That was a one-time deal.”

“DIE?!” Laith shouts. “You  _ died?! _ As in, heart stopped, ghost ejected, fully died?!” He stumbles back into Keith, who grabs his shoulders firmly to steady him. “Why didn’t they ever tell me any of this?” 

“Oops,” Shiro says sheepishly at Lance’s death glare. 

“Probably because we didn’t want you to have to carry all that,” Krolia says, stepping forward. She kneels in front of Laith, touching his cheek. “When you’re a parent, you have this little ball of sunshine in your arms, and all of a sudden there’s nothing more important to you than keeping them safe. From everything. Your parents, along with the rest of us, just wanted you to have a happy, carefree childhood. I’m sure they weren’t trying to deceive you. They wanted to protect you.”

“Oh,” Laith murmurs, unconsciously leaning into Krolia’s touch. The Galra woman smiles fondly and stands back up after giving his cheek one last squeeze, placing her hand on Laith’s shoulder and on top of Keith’s. Lance had forgotten about how Krolia fit in to the situation—it wasn’t easy to learn that he was a parent, and it probably was just as strange for her to discover that she was a grandma. She’s the only one among them who has any real practice with having children. Maybe he should take advantage of the fact that she might be able to solve some of his dilemmas regarding Laith.

“Well, Lance’s scar is very unfortunate, but perhaps he’d like to know what we’ve been up to while he’s been healing?” Allura suggests kindly, and Lance nods.

“Yes please,” Lance sighs, grateful for the distraction. He’s sure that the weight of his scar will hit him hard once he actually can see it in a mirror, but until then he’s content to ignore it. 

“Right! Lance, look at this bullshit,” Pidge growls, pointing to the numerous screens flashing with strange symbols and loading bars that he can’t decipher. “The Galra put this stupid code over their data and we’ve been spending  _ hours  _ trying to figure it out.”

“With help from Allura and Krolia’s alien linguistic knowledge we were able to come up with some clues as to what they might’ve done to the data, and Pidge put together an algorithm that’s hopefully auto-solving it right now,” Hunk explains. “Although, this is our fourth? Fifth?”

“Seventh,” Pidge supplies, eyes stormy with loathing as she glares up at the screen.

“Right— _ seventh _ algorithm attempt,” Hunk sighs. “But we’re confident it’ll work this time! I think.”

“It’s been a long day,” Shiro murmurs with a wince. 

“I can tell,” Lance says sympathetically. “What happened with the lab? I sorta blacked out after getting hit—did they try to chase us down?”

“No, we got out before they could follow us, and Hunk’s diversion blew up the whole pocket. As far as we know, it’s gone,” Keith says stonily. Lance doesn’t miss the way his eyes flicker over to Lance’s back as he says it. 

“Oh. So the lab is gone?” he repeats. Keith nods. “Do you think… did we just change our future or something? I mean, Laith, you said that a lot of the really dangerous weapons were invented in that lab, and we weren’t supposed to destroy it until what, the last year of the war? So we just blew up a  _ huge  _ chunk of our future in this dimension. Unless there were other labs?”

“I don’t know if there were others. Like Krolia said, I was pretty protected from the events of the war. But I did hear 64-Illa being tossed around an awful lot during conversation,” Laith admits.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Shiro says thoughtfully. “What kinds of horrors did we eradicate from our futures? And what might we have introduced on accident through that action?” 

“If this data could decrypt itself we might be able to answer some of those questions,” Pidge sneers, her fists clenching. 

“We should probably let you get back to it,” Lance soothes. “I need a shower, and Laith needs to go to bed. Was that all that happened?” 

“Yeah, we’ll alert the comms if anything comes up,” Pidge sighs, rubbing her eyes under her glasses. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“We all are,” Coran adds, stepping forward and putting his hand on Lance’s shoulder. Lance smiles gratefully at the sea of happy faces. Despite the frustration from the data, they’re still his optimistic family and he loves them for it. 

“Well, Laith? Should we get you to bed?” Lance turns to the kid, who blinks owlishly and nods in reply. Whether he’s lost in thought or dazed from fatigue is anyone’s guess. Lance’s future self is going to  _ kill him  _ when he finds out how late he’s been letting Laith stay up. “Keith, would you mind coming with us? I uh—need your help for something.” 

“Oh, uh, sure,” Keith responds awkwardly. He looks up to his mom beside him imploringly, who shrugs as if to say  _ I don’t know what he wants, you go.  _ As they turn to leave, he catches another glimpse of Lance’s massive scar. His stomach churns and he hurries to catch up with him. 

Laith is out the moment his head hits the pillow. Lance watches as he brushes his teeth in a zombie-like stupor before shrugging his jacket off and throwing himself into bed, murmuring a quick ‘goodnight’ before slipping into unconsciousness. He feels a pang of guilt, knowing that he’s the reason the boy is so exhausted, and ducks out of Iris down to Keith, who is waiting at her mouth. 

“You needed my help for something?” Keith asks with a raised eyebrow as Lance descend’s the ramp from Iris’s jaw. “What is it?”

“That was just an excuse to get you alone,” Lance explains, walking towards Red. Keith falls in step beside him, looking confused. 

“Why do you want me alone?” he asks.

“You looked constipated while we were debriefing in Green, and you were about to say something before Laith woke up right after I fell out of the pod. I was just wondering if you were okay,” Lance says, not bothering to dance around the subject. He’d noticed immediately after Laith’s pointing out of his scar that Keith had gone almost comatose—face blank and lips sealed, though his eyes darted around like comets flitting from one end of the sky to another. 

“Wh—constipated?! No I didn’t!” Keith says defensively, crossing his arms and glaring at Lance, who shrugs in reply. 

“You sure there’s nothing wrong? I know we’re not… the closest of friends… but if I can do anything to help you out I’d be happy to. I’m your right hand, remember?” Lance nudges Keith’s shoulder with his own to emphasize his point. Keith’s taut stance loosens a bit, and he sighs, raking his fingers through his hair. 

“Yeah. I’m—it’s fine. It’s not—I mean, I don’t—” he growls frustratedly when the words fail to fall out the way he wants them to. Lance sympathises immensely. He can’t count the number of situations he’s managed to fuck up because he said the wrong thing at the wrong time. At one point, he almost started a civil war on an alien planet for making a joke about the priestess’ robes. 

“Look, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I was just checking in to let you know that when you feel like it, I’m here.” Lance smiles, stepping in front of Red’s opened mouth. Keith’s eyes are wide and his eyebrows drawn, and he worries his lower lip between his teeth anxiously. 

“Okay. I—yeah. I will. Thanks,” Keith mutters, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot and fiddling with his bangs. Lance turns to walk in to Red, looking forward to a nice, hot shower and a change of fluffy pajama clothes. Moments before he disappears into Red’s mouth, however, he hears loud, metallic footsteps thumping up the silver ramp. He whirls around just in time to catch a flash of red and black before Keith’s arms are around his neck in a tight, suffocating embrace. 

“Keith?” Lance says at a near-whisper, shock and the tightness of his arms around him stealing his breath away. He’d expected some sort of last-minute reaction from the man—Keith’s impulsive nature practically guarantees that his shyness will melt away given enough time—but he didn’t anticipate the anti-touchy-feely guy to give him an unprompted  _ hug.  _

“Just… don’t do that again. Please.” Keith sounds so heartbreakingly vulnerable, it catches Lance completely off guard. 

“I’ll try my best,” he promises, voice soft. After a moment, Keith’s grip tightens minutely, then his arms fall away completely and he walks away towards Black without another word. 

◊◊◊

“Holy shit,” Pidge murmurs. “Shiro, Allura! Look!” she scurries out of Green’s pilot chair, jumping up and down and clutching her tablet between her hands so tightly she worries it might break. Rolling across it are thousands of decrypted sentences, charts, and studies glowing in a bright forest green. “Shiro!” she shouts, louder this time, and finally his comms flicker on. 

“Pidge, what is it? Is everything okay?” he says, panic lilting in his groggy voice. “Wait, what time is it?”

“Doesn’t matter. I figured it out! I figured it out! And there’s—Jesus, Shiro, you gotta look at this. There’s studies in here on things we’ve never even  _ heard of _ —Quintessence is fucking insane, man,” she blabbers, tapping on different things on the screen, her fingers flickering fast enough to blur before her exhausted eyes. 

“Okay, sit tight. I’m gonna grab Allura. Be over there in a minute.”

“Hurry, please.” Pidge commands anxiously, her cheeks beginning to ache from her massive grin. 

“Don’t worry, I am,” Shiro says with a chuckle, the sounds of rustling blankets filling the comms as he stands up. “And Pidge?”

“Yeah?”

“Good job.”

Pidge’s smile softens, then expands into something even more blinding than before. “Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> "Ay, esta que chifla el mono," - Cuban slang meaning "it's fucking COLD!" literally means "the monkey whistles."  
> “Eso dijo ella,” - that's what she said ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> "aceres" - "homies" or "bros"


	8. Will and Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I always fear that when I really impose my will on something, the universe is gonna punish me for it.” -David Lipsky

 

_ Laughter. High, and childish. Squeaky swing sets, small hands wrapped around silver chain. Tiny footsteps padding across pavement, a little boy running too fast for himself to handle but wanting to go faster all the same. Smiling, because they’re so completely the same. Worrying about him for the same reason. _

_ Campfire. A crackling, bubbling, flickering mess of smoke and warmth. Mouths filled with gooey marshmallow and flaky char. Cold desert nights, sparkling skies and the heat of family at his side. Wondering how he got so damn lucky. _

_ Skin. Long, dark fingers intertwined with his own, a freckled thread woven through shattered porcelain. Keeping the pieces together until they can fuse by themselves. Chest filled to bursting with an anxious, sickening, enthralling emotion he doesn’t think he’s ever felt before.  _

_ Tears. A knife tearing through a starlit tapestry, the light beyond it full and buzzing, an empty void. Looking at the face that had never failed to soothe his aches and flood his smiles. Watching it flicker away as the light overtakes him. Letting out a strangled cry of anguish, and getting one last glimpse of the inky black sky. Wondering in which star does his son sleep soundly. Pulling the trigger and watching the wound in the universe seal shut, thread by torturous thread.  _

_ Agony. Time flickering by indistinguishably. Thinking that it could have been hours or years. At least he still has  _ him.  _ But their lion cub is out of reach. Holding to each other tightly, ignoring the feeling of their hearts shattering. Ignoring how the sharp edges rip their insides to shreds.  _

Keith gasps, throwing his blanket from his cold sweating body. In an instant, Kosmo is by his side, whining and nudging his leg.

“I’m okay, boy. It was just…” he rubs his face absently, startling as he feels his cheeks are damp. “It was just a dream.” He bends over and yanks his boots on, mind whirling as it tries to chase the fleeting ribbons of memory. It’s too late, though—they’re just out of his reach. He’s left with a strange sort of hollowness—the space where intense and terrifyingly large emotions once were but got ripped away.

“CALLING ALL THE MONSTERS!” Pidge shouts all of a sudden, her slightly manic voice filling Black’s speakers. “Wake up everyone! We cracked the code! Meet in Green in 15 dobashes!” Keith’s thoughts immediately latch on to the distraction. He flies into his clothes and grabs his bayard along with his BOM blade then dashes down Black’s ramp, Krolia and Kosmo hot on his tail. He lets the sound of his breathing and the feeling of adrenaline coursing through his body be his compass through the wild roaring of his thoughts. For whatever reason, his heart still races from the dream even in the absence of its memory. 

Upon arriving at Green, he finds—surprisingly—Lance already standing beside Pidge, Shiro, Coran, and Allura. Though none of them ever take more than five dobashes to respond, he’s usually one of the last to arrive at a call to action. Since becoming Keith’s right hand, however, he has improved his professionalism. Keith supposes he can’t be too shocked that Lance was the first one up anymore. 

Moments later, Laith appears at Keith’s side, looking positively windswept. It looks like he’d gotten dressed inside an opened airlock. Keith raises an eyebrow at the kid, who shrugs.

“Iris got excited,” he apologizes with a slightly crazed grin. The explanation still doesn’t offer Keith any clues about Laith’s appearance—is there something about the futuristic Voltron lions he doesn’t know but should? Maybe it makes sense to his future self. He decides to drop it. 

A tick or two passes, then Hunk and Romelle come huffing up the ramp, Romelle’s hair a wild blonde hurricane. “Pidge, what?! You solved it? Was it the algorithm?” Hunk fires, scrubbing his eyes with his hands. The poor guy looks  _ exhausted,  _ he can’t have gotten much more sleep than Pidge—ever the insomniac—as they’d still been working together to crack the code when Keith went to bed. 

“Yeah, it was! Well, sort of. After the algorithm ran it all through I found some numbers and letters out of place, but it was mostly looking normal so I composed a simple cypher to do the dirty work switching everything out and back in again until it was somewhat sensical. Once I did that a couple times to wash out all the deads it was just a matter of rearranging all the five letter words into fours—Allura was right about the quintet subtraction pattern—and making sure that the turns weren’t—”

“Can we maybe do this later?” Lance suggests through a yawn, and Keith’s attention is drawn immediately to the weary monotone of his voice. Did Lance stay up all night too? He’d looked pretty tired when Keith left him at Red after… well, maybe he wasn’t paying as much attention to Lance’s level of exhaustion during that time. But he’s pretty sure that Lance had been excited to hit the hay. Is he having trouble sleeping? Maybe Keith should check in on him after this and make sure—

_ No, no, stop,  _ Keith reprimands himself. Lance is a perfectly responsible person who doesn’t need a babysitter. Keith doesn’t know why he’s worrying so much, Lance has assured him on multiple occasions that if things get bad or he just wants to talk about something he’ll be sure to let Keith know. They’re a good team, and they trust each other. Whatever Lance’s deal is, he can handle it on his own. Keith has perfect confidence in him. 

So then why does his gut feel so fucking heavy with concern?

“Right, sorry. Kick me if I start rambling I… didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” Pidge apologizes with a humorless chuckle, rubbing her eyes underneath her glasses. “Anyways, where was I?”

“The quintessence,” Shiro prompts. “Pidge found some really interesting—”

“Yeah  _ shit,  _ look at this, guys!” Pidge screeches, scurrying over to the pilot’s chair and pulling up several pages’ worth of data. It flies by too quickly for Keith to really comprehend, but at least he can tell that it’s in English. Pidge whirls around and grins almost scarily at the group, something terrifying glinting in her amber eyes. “Are you ready for the  _ brainfuck  _ of a  _ lifetime _ ?”

“Um, I don’t know?” Romelle squeaks timidly. “That has never happened to me before, as far as I can recall.”

“Well Romelle, put on your prettiest thinking cap because Katherine Science Holt is about to take your brain virginity so hard you’ll be brain limping for weeks.”

“Wow, I really did  _ not  _ need that mental image!” Lance cringes.

“Wait, your middle name is  _ Science? _ ” Keith sputters.

“Matt is short for Mathematics, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Shiro shrugs. 

“I DON’T OWN A THINKING CAP! WHERE CAN I PURCHASE ONE?!” Romelle cries. 

“Alright, alright everyone! Calm down! Pidge, would you please explain your findings—and stop with the metaphors, you’re scaring Romelle,” Allura’s commanding voice floods over the chaos, effectively drowning all the other voices. She walks over to Romelle—who is shaking and patting the top of her head as if a thinking cap will magically appear there if she thinks it hard enough—and rubs her shoulders comfortingly. 

“Okay, fine,” Pidge pouts, then turns back to the screen. “This is a confusing one, though. Don’t hesitate to ask any questions along the way.”

The crew looks on in silence as Pidge pulls up three pictures, one of Zarkon, one of Haggar, and one of a sweet-looking Altean woman standing next to tall, rocky, lizard-like alien who smiles for the camera, broad arm slung around the woman’s shoulders. In the backdrop, a broad blue sky stretches over a drill-like structure, like a mine. Behind Keith, Allura and Coran gasp lightly. 

“These, as we know, are Zarkon and Haggar after they messed around with quintessence and turned themselves into beasts. Those two people in the third picture are Zarkon and Haggar—formerly known as Honerva— _ before  _ that happened.” As Pidge explains, Keith notices the other paladins stiffen with shock. They’d heard the story before—how Zarkon had betrayed Alfor in his and Haggar’s obsessive plight for the endless power of the quintessence field—but they’d never considered how  _ normal  _ they’d looked. Kind, even. The smiling couple on the screen before them have murdered  _ billions,  _ destroyed entire galaxies, but they look almost friendly. 

“As you can tell, there were some serious mental, emotional, and even physical changes that occurred after prolonged exposure to quintessence. According to this data, and the stories we’ve all heard about the start of this war, Haggar and Zarkon developed a sort of tunnel vision. They became absolutely obsessed with harvesting quintessence—even if at first it started as a benign experiment, it became the universe-wide genocide we know of today all because they became entranced by the quintessence’s power. The druids knew this, and were doing experiments to find out the how and why. They wanted to see if they could weaponize the way that quintessence can fuck with life.”

To Keith’s right, Lance makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. Keith completely agrees with the sentiment. The druids are cold, heartless, magic-wielding machines. Shiro had been a victim of their ruthless experimentation first hand—the thought of which still brings Keith’s blood to boiling. Pidge takes a deep breath.

“Here’s where it gets sorta confusing. We all know that everything has energy in it, right? I’m talking about normal energy, like the kinds we learn about in physics. Kinetic energy, potential energy, radiation, the likes. Energy is like a constant, linear force. It always has a direction or purpose, and it’s in all things—living and nonliving. However, there was another type of energy that earthen scientists have never known about, and therefore never reached our knowledge until now.”

“Quintessence,” Hunk finishes for Pidge, groaning. “Yeah, we know. What does this have to do with helping Laith?”

“I’m getting to it,” Pidge reassures. “Be patient.” She dismisses the photos of Zarkon and Haggar (somewhat to Keith’s relief) and enlarges a page full of words and numbers. “This is a report for one of their most recent experiments on prolonged quintessence exposure.” She points to a paragraph near the bottom of the page and highlights it, zooming in so that everyone can read the fine print. “It looks like they sent prisoners taken from the planets they’d invaded inside locked capsules of varying strength and saw how long it took for them to try to break out. In most cases, ‘the subjects were eventually able to escape the capsules, though some required more time for the quintessence to assist their efforts.’ But then some of the weaker prisoners were placed into impossibly thick capsules that were further reinforced by druid magic, making them almost impossible to penetrate even with the unlimited quintessence.”

Pidge leans forward and highlights another phrase, swallowing thickly. “‘Upon bringing wave 29 back to base, we were surprised to find that the subjects were no longer inside the capsules, despite records showing zero disturbances in the capsule walls. It was as if they had vanished into thin air.’”

“So what, quintessence can make you teleport? Are we going to try to teleport my parents and me back to my dimension or something?” Laith chews on his lower lip, glancing around the group with a confused expression. 

“No, it’s—the prisoners didn’t teleport.” Pidge says, her mouth a grim line. “Just—let me finish.” She clears her throat and starts back where she’d stopped, scrolling down to show more of the highlighted paragraph. “‘Waves 30 through 38 yielded similar results, and we were growing frustrated with the lack of progress until we noticed that, once opened, the capsules appeared to release a brief flash of yellow light. At first, we had dismissed it as a secondary reaction to the force of opening the large structures with our magic. However, by the time waves 40, 41, and 42 had been conducted, we concluded that the subjects had not in fact vanished, but their physical forms had been completely transmuted into quintessence. The disturbance found during the opening of the capsules was their quintessence forms diluting into the air.’”

“In Alfor’s name,” Coran gasps, horrified. 

“So… The prisoners…” Keith murmurs, “they turned  _ into  _ quintessence?”

“Yes. Apparently, if anything spends too much time inside the field, they’ll completely dissolve into quintessence itself. Apparently it happens all the time, with little bits of interdimensional debris. The field just eats it up,” Pidge says, her voice hard. 

“How long does it take?! My parents have been in there for two years now, what if—what if—” Laith cries.

“Don’t worry, Laith. These last ‘experiments’ of theirs were set in the long term. It’s definitely not any less than five years.” Pidge soothes, and Laith relaxes a tiny bit. 

“Wait, how do they survive that long without food or water?” Hunk asks. “It said up there that the subjects were only given the clothes on their backs inside the capsules.”

“Nice catch, Hunk. Since quintessence is literally life force, it can keep any living thing alive for as long as it has the supplies to do so. That’s how Zarkon survived as the immortal beast he was,” Coran explains. “Since they were in the quintessence field, a lack of sustenance was not the problem. It seems, rather, that they became overloaded by it.”

“Right. Which brings me back to good ol’ nonmagical physics. We’ve all heard the conundrum about unstoppable forces and immovable objects and how it would be possibly cataclysmic if the two were to ever collide. Well, as it turns out, the quintessence field can create unstoppable forces! Isn’t that incredible?” Pidge exclaims. 

“How?” Shiro asks. “Isn’t that impossible?”

“Well, yes, for physical energy. But quintessence? It doesn’t run on normal laws. It’s a  _ life  _ energy. And what separates living and nonliving things?” Pidge asks.

“Uh, living things grow?” Lance suggests.

“Living things  _ think.  _ They make choices, they have intentions. Bacteria want to multiply, trees want to grow, people want… lots of things. That, according to the druids, is the driving force of quintessence—of life. Quintessence is a force for carrying out  _ intention _ . So if a living thing falls into the quintessence field, it has an endless supply to carry out their wants and desires. That’s what caused Lotor and Zarkon and Haggar’s tunneled vision—all that quintessence made them obsessed with their intentions.”

“That’s… awesome,” Keith breathes. 

“I  _ know,  _ right?!” Pidge squeals. “But here’s the twist—if you end up spending too much time in the field and dissolving into the quintessence, meaning the vessel for choosing the intent of the quintessence disappears, then the quintessence is left carrying out its last ‘order’ until it runs out of juice to do so.” 

“And in the field, you never run out of juice! So the last intention will keep on being carried out into eternity!” Romelle blurts out, dawning realization glowing across her face. 

“Exactly exactly exactly!” Pidge shouts, pointing to Romelle. “And that brings us to our Beast!”

“How so?” Laith asks. 

“Well, I think it’s safe to say that Lotor is our Beast. It’s my theory that, in Laith’s timeline, he’s already been reduced to sheer quintessence, thus making him an unstoppable force. With that much power to carry out his final goal, he’s been able to carve away at the edges of Laith’s reality. I think it’s his goal to get back inside.”

“So that’s how he’s had that much power,” Allura murmurs. 

“Right. So all we’d need to do is lure him out of the field and into the normal universe, and he’d run out of the only thing keeping his force going. He would probably just explode the same way the prisoners did in the druid tests.” Pidge says, her tone growing angry at the mention of the barbaric tests the prisoners were forced to endure. 

“In a flash of yellow light,” Krolia mutters contemplatively.

“And if we can find a way to open up a portal to lure him out, we could safely start searching for future Lance and Keith, and send Laith back to his dimension,” Coran says. 

“That was my thought as well! But the thing is, we can’t just open up a hole for him to come through. It has to be according to his reasons why he wants to get back. It’s not going to be as easy to divert this kind of energy, we can’t just give him a hard push in the right direction and expect him to keep rolling into our little trap like we could with the linear types of energy. The quintessence follows a certain set of rules, and it won’t just jump into our hands if we open a portal for it. It has to believe that we want the same thing it wants.” Pidge says, fingers flying across her keyboard once more. She pulls up a blank note and types “Lotor’s Lusts for Life” at the top, then starts a list of bullet points. 

“Did we have to title it that?” Lance groans. 

“Yes. Because I am an asshole. Now, any ideas? What could Lotor want to get back in here for? To kill voltron? Take over the universe? Come on guys, help me out.”

“Maybe he wants revenge on his generals?” Keith supplies. Pidge nods and types it onto the note, along with her own two ideas. A few minutes of brainstorming pass, most of the ideas coming from Lance and Pidge who arent afraid to offer ridiculous suggestions. Then Allura, who had been suspiciously silent for some time, clears her throat and steps towards Pidge.

“I think…” Allura says, then stops. The room goes quiet as they watch the girl turn slowly, her eyes trained on the ground. Then she blinks once, looks up, and says with one tear rolling down her face, “I think I know what we need to do.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who doesn’t like the made-up star science I’ve been adding in, I have two things to say: One—I’m sorry. This is probably the last of it. Two—what did you think was going to happen? This fic is literally named after physics.


	9. Flashback II

Allura sighs, sliding to the cool metal floor beneath her. Her limbs feel heavy and her temples ache. Her mouth is dry and her ears ring in the way she’s gotten used to in these past few weeks of building the ship with Lotor. Using so much alchemy has been marvelous practice, and she feels confident that her father would be proud of the steps she is taking to follow in his. 

Still, the immense stress is beginning to wear her thin. Allura has been finding herself taking more frequent breaks and getting worn out much easier. She’d thought that the more she exercises her alchemic muscles, the stronger they’d become, but it feels like for every step her magic takes forward, her body needs to go two back. She sighs and rubs her eyes tiredly, urging the frustrated tears that prickle in her eyes back. 

“Princess? Is everything alright?” Lotor’s silken voice calls from above. Allura cries out and snaps her head up so quickly that it bangs against the hard metal wall behind her. She winces and hurries to her feet, rubbing the back of her head, just as Lotor lithely drops from a hatch in the ceiling. Was that there before? She can’t remember. Which part of the ship is she even  _ in _ ? 

“Allura!” Lotor exclaims, rushing over to her. 

“Oh, it’s nothing, you just startled me is all,” she mutters, waving her arms nonchalantly. The gesture goes unnoticed by the Prince, who steps behind her and begins inspecting her head for bruises or cuts. His long lavender fingers comb through her hair absentmindedly as he does it, and she can feel the warmth of his chest behind her. Her face immediately flushes, and she ducks her head, grateful that Lotor is standing behind her so he can’t see the reaction he seems to effortlessly pull from her. 

“You’re lucky you’re not more hurt, Princess,” Lotor says softly, dropping his hands from her head. She aches in the absence of his touch, then immediately reprimands herself for feeling that way. Lotor is a very busy, important prince of an empire. Silly feelings of affection have no place in their diplomatic relationship. “Head injuries can be very serious,” Lotor says with concern, sliding so that he stands in front of her. 

Every movement he makes is so fluid and effortless, like water rippling between rocks in a stream. It’s just not fair—he makes her years of posture training and curtsy lessons look clumsy. His violet eyes bore into her own, his sculpted jaw and smooth lips turned into a worried frown. She doesn’t tear her eyes away. Sure, crushes are extremely unprofessional, but it can’t hurt to just  _ look  _ at him, right? Any sensible person would do the same. Beautiful things are meant to be gazed at.

“I told you, you just startled me,” Allura laughs, shyly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She tries not to delude herself into thinking that he’d actually traced the motion with his eyes. And she  _ definitely  _ does not notice a slight dusting of pink over his sharp lavender cheekbones—no, absolutely not. She’s only seeing what she wants to see and it’s a childish practice to do so. 

“Then what brings your beautiful eyes such concern?” he asks, one smooth hand sliding up to cup her jaw and tilt her head up towards his. For one moment, she thinks he’s going to kiss her, and her breath catches in her throat. But instead he merely tilts her head from side to side, analyzing her expression. “Something troubles you.”

Allura pulls back immediately, mind racing and heart roaring. A kiss?! Why did she think he was going to  _ kiss  _ her?! She’s the only one weak enough to develop romantic feelings, Lotor is much too responsible for that. She’d thought the same of herself until it happened. In Alfor’s name what is she becoming? Some sort of blushing maid?

“No! Everything’s fine, I assure you! Just a little tired!” She fans herself, using exhaustion as an excuse for her cherried cheeks. Lotor frowns.

“Allura,” he says seriously, his voice dropping an octave. He steps forward and reaches for her hand, holding it lightly in his own. Her eyes dart down at their intertwined fingers, but she mentally applauds herself for holding back her blush. “If something is on your mind I urge you to speak up. We’re a team now, you and I. How are we going to rebuild the Galra empire together if we cannot be honest with one another?”

Allura sighs and looks down, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. Lotor is right, he’s always right. 

“I’m just… worried. About my powers, about how long this is taking.” She can tell him  _ part  _ of the truth without revealing her silly crush. She’s still being honest, it’s just not getting in the way of their progress. “I feel like I’m not improving as fast as I need to be to get this right. I just don’t want to let anyone down.”

Lotor’s face softens into an empathetic smile. “Can I let you in on a secret?” he asks, sinking down to sit on the cool metal floor, his hand still intertwined with Allura’s, and she follows suit, tilting her head curiously. 

“What is it?” Allura asks, her mind whirling a mile a minute as Lotor’s face suddenly becomes startlingly serious. 

“You aren’t the only one with insecurities,” he murmurs, his thumb absently running across the ridges of her knuckles. It sends shivers up her arm and into her chest. How could  _ he  _ have insecurities? He’s the tactical, clever, diplomatic prince of a universe-wide empire (not to mention drop dead  _ gorgeous _ ). The more he speaks the more questions build up inside her head. She inclines her head slightly in what she hopes is an understanding promise to listen to what he has to say. 

“I have always craved… belonging,” he says with a breath, his eyes turned upward and away from Allura. “My parents never loved me, they were too fixated on power to pay attention to their rebellious child. I think my mother cared for me once, but that time has long since passed. Haggar killed the mother that was mine.”

Allura holds onto his hand tighter, her heart beginning to break. 

“My generals are not my friends, they fear me and my position above them too much to consider me anything more friendly than their boss. The Galran people reject me because I’m not Galra enough, everyone else rejects me because I _ am  _ Galra—” He sighs and turns his eyes back towards Allura. They’re sparkling with a sadness so palpable she can feel it in her throat. “I’ve never been wanted once in my life,” he whispers. Allura shifts forward so that she’s sitting close enough to wrap her arms around his shoulders, holding him tight and pouring every ounce of love that she has into the embrace. 

“Lotor, we— _ I _ want you. I care about you, more than just in a diplomatic sense. You shouldn’t ever feel any differently,” Allura confesses quietly, her heart racing. 

“I care for you as well, admittedly more than I probably should,” Lotor responds, his voice quiet against her ear. “You need not worry about whether you’re letting anyone down. You’ve already done so much, for all of us. The universe is indebted to you. Don’t forget that.”

Allura nods, pulling back to wipe her eyes. She smiles, not trusting herself to be able to speak. 

“I think we deserve a break. What do you say we go see what the royal kitchens have to offer us?” Lotor suggests, rising to his feet and offering his hand for her to take. As he helps her to standing, he pulls her close to him, arms looping around her waist. She blushes and looks down at her feet to avoid his piercing gaze.

“I want to finish this last adjustment, if that’s alright. But I’ll meet you down there within the dobash?” she suggests, reluctantly pulling away. At last, she looks up to see Lotor’s gentle smile shining down at her. 

“Of course, Princess,” he says, giving her hand one final squeeze. He turns to leave, and Allura immediately misses his touch.

“Lotor!” Allura calls in the last second before he disappears around the corner towards the exit. He stops and turns his head back around, raising an eyebrow in question. 

“Yes, Princess?” he asks.

“Thank you,” she says emphatically. He smiles and looks down, almost bashful.

“You’re quite welcome,” Lotor responds, his voice gentle as a juniberry petal. Then his form slips away from view, and Allura’s resolve melts. She drops to the ground once more with a groan, clutching at her uproarious heartbeat.

_ What am I going to do? _


	10. The Soul’s Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.” —Charles Dickens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late!! After NaNoWriMo I sorta fell into a slump. But I’m determined to hop back onto that train and go full-steam ahead!! The end is in sight, boys. I can’t believe I’ve actually written this many words in my lifetime :0

Every once in a while, Lance will begin to burn.

It starts as the tiniest tingle at the thinnest part of his scar—more of an itch than anything—but by the time Lance can register that it’s happening, it’s already shooting down his spine and curling around his hip bone. White hot swirling flames licking across his body as searing as the day he’d been nearly sliced in two.

He’d first felt it as he was showering the night he’d woken up. AKA The Night of the Gay Crisis: When I Realized Keith is Hot? Keith wasn’t the only hottie that night, though. The little tingle began, and Lance had just enough time to frown at the suddenly scorching hot water before he was being choked by fire and the world was going white. He’d opened his eyes moments later on the floor of the tiny shower pod, vision blurring and ears ringing.

This was concerning, to say the least. While there was no blood pooling down from the scar, no lingering bubbles of skin hot to the touch, Lance still felt like he’d been through 64-Illa all over again.

Lance shivers at the memory and tosses another rock off the roof of their Olkari sleeping quarters and into the forest below. It’s been just over a week since they’d enlisted Ryner and her people to help them build the ship that could break into the quintessence field without damaging the fabric of time. It’s intense work and Lance has no idea how to help, so he’s been trying his best to just stay out of everybody’s way. The greenery of the forest stretches out like a carpet below Lance, and behind him the glittering city and skeletal structure of the ship’s work in progress scatters dappled light over the treetops. The stars overhead twinkle almost tauntingly down at him. It’s here, surrounded by so many things so much bigger than him, that Lance can’t help but feel incredibly small.

“Hey Lance,” comes a small voice behind him. Lance turns to see Laith walking up to him, hands in the pockets of his jacket and the wind ruffling his dark curls. Lance smiles at the boy as he moves to sit beside him, feet dangling over the edge of the tall building. Immediately a coil of anxiety shoots through Lance as he watches Laith kick his feet carelessly over the drop, and he tries his best to subtly lean back and grab hold of the end of his jacket. Should Laith actually fall off the roof, holding his jacket between his fingers wouldn’t do much to help, but it comforts Lance’s mother hen instincts. He knows he’s being hypocritical—he was here first, doing exactly the same thing he’s trying to stop Laith from doing, but he can’t help himself from worrying.

Over the past week on Olkarion they’ve become closer than ever. After scouring Iris for any traces of AAT blueprints or parts or really anything that might help the creation of the ship, Laith had been left with nothing to do but wait. So Lance had enlisted his help in finding something to entertain themselves as the two odd paladins out. They’d explored the marketplace, tried weird alien fruits, and brought entertainment to the hardworking people who were helping build the ship through goofs and stories of their adventures.

Every once in a while, Keith would join them. He doesn’t have a lot of technological or engineering experience either, but unlike Lance and Laith, he has a large leadership role as the paladin of the Black lion, so every once in a while he’ll be needed for planning and other boring meetings. As much as Lance tries to deny it, those are his favorite days. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Laith truly is the child of both of them, and the similarities only become more stark when Keith is there with them. Sometimes Lance will catch Keith’s eyes glittering with the same childlike enthusiasm that he sees in Laith’s violet ones whenever he spies something that catches his eye. Lance has to tear his attention away quickly, however, if he wants to continue pointedly _ignoring_ any thoughts of attraction towards the former Red paladin.

Through all his original shyness towards them, Lance has noticed that Laith contains within his tiny body a dangerous combination of Lance’s burning curiosity and Keith’s tendency to do whatever the fuck he wants without thinking first. They’d learned that the hard way two days ago.

The three of them had been on a walk through the city collecting trash in an effort to repay the Olkari for all the help they’d agreed to give them. It was difficult work—not because the city was full of pollution, but because it was nearly spotless. So far they’d only succeeded in finding a pile of boxes similar in texture to cardboard that had actually turned out to be a recycling zone. Due to the lack of help needed, the expedition had transformed into more of a sightseeing walk through the city.

“Look at _that_ ,” Laith had gasped, pointing over their heads to a towering skyscraper.

“What is it?” Keith asked. The building was pretty much the same as any of the other geometric slate-colored structures in the bustling downtown. It wasn’t particularly tall but it also wasn’t short, standing at a couple hundred feet. Architecturally, it didn’t stand out much from the others apart from the large triangular structures jutting out from the corners, like smooth obsidian ramps. “I don’t see anything.”

Laith was trembling with excitement as he’d grabbed both their wrists and exclaimed “I have an idea!”

A few dobashes later and they were riding an elevator up to the top of the building that Laith had pointed out, carrying a gigantic cardboard box that Laith had salvaged from the recycling pile they’d found earlier. It was covered in bright red Olkari script, so Lance couldn’t read if it had any toxic chemicals on it. He was starting to grow concerned that maybe Laith had inhaled some sort of crazy drug that made him super excited about cardboard boxes.

They got to the top of the building where Lance had to help Keith maneuver the box easily big enough to hold all three of them inside it out the skinny elevator doors while Laith scurried off with a quick “BRB.”

When Laith returned, he had with him a smiling Olkari security guard with a set of glowing green keys. Lance raised an eyebrow at Keith, who shrugged and followed behind Laith and the guard as if to say _you know as well as I do_. The guard guided them to a set of stairs that led up to a steel colored door at the top, which he unlocked and gestured for the paladins to go through.

“Thanks,” Lance managed around the cardboard box he and Keith shoved through the opening.

“Anything for the paladins of Voltron,” he responded kindly, a hint of amusement in his tone. Upon tumbling out the door, they found themselves on the roof of the tall building, a gentle breeze tangling their hair.

Lance stole a glance at Keith and felt something warm flicker up in his stomach. Keith’s annoying overgrown mullet flowed gently in the breeze, the strands catching the orange late afternoon sun like a halo around his head. He was smiling softly as he gazed over the skyline, eyes crinkling and shoulders loose and relaxed. He looked like a fucking supermodel.

“This,” Laith breathed, “is what I was talking about.” He sauntered over to the edge of the roof to their left, pointing down. Lance and Keith set the box down and walked over, not bothering to hide their confusion.

Until.

“Oh,” Lance grinned.

“Oh!” Keith laughed.

Now that they could see down the long, flat, triangular stone structures that extended down on all four corners of the rectangular building, they realized that each stone had an easily twenty feet wide flat top, creating a massively steep slide hundreds of feet long. And what better to ride down the universe’s largest slide than with the universe’s largest cardboard box?

“Dad! Get the box! C’mon!” Laith squealed, running over to the abandoned box-turned-daredevil-vessel and dragging it over to the beauty-of-alien-architecture-turned-daredevil-slide.

Common sense was out the window. Like moths to a flame, the three of them were fixated solely on the _awesome_ fun that would come from the ride. They situated the box—which was shallow enough that it only went about to Lance’s shoulder but big enough that all three of them could stretch their legs out all the way if they wanted to—at the top of the slide, Lance and Keith’s hands clinging to the edge of the roof being the only thing stopping them from their steep plunge. The entirety of the city tumbled out beneath them, a mere carpet hundreds of feet below.

“Uh, maybe this isn’t—“ Keith began to say.

“Three two one GO!” Lance shouted, grabbing Keith’s hand and pulling it away at the same time as he released his own grip.

They flew down the building’s support like Voltron in a nosedive. Wind whipped at their faces and clothes at hurricane speeds, their laughter falling behind them as the sound was lost to their plunge. It was like Kaltenecker at the space mall all over again. Lance felt like he was flying.

As they neared the bottom, Lance heard Keith shout something at him that he couldn’t quite catch through the roaring of the wind and his own laughter.

“WHAT?!” He shouted back.

“WE’RE GONNA CRASH!” Keith cried, more desperately this time, and Lance heard it loud and clear as he chanced a look down at the road beneath them, just a couple seconds away from impact. They were careening towards a large wooden cart stacked full of a strange blue vegetable. Suddenly their laughter transformed into horrified screams as the shot like a bullet towards the cart.

“WATCH OUT!” Lance cried, just in time for the man beside the cart to see them hurtling towards them. With a scream he jumped out of the way of their craft, but his cart was not quite so lucky. Lance reached forward at the same time as Keith and pushed Laith’s head down into a protective duck as the crashed straight into the wooden structure.

The sound of splinters and screaming and wilting vegetables echoed through the air until it fell completely silent with shock. Slowly, Lance brought his head up to take a glance at the wreckage. The seams of the cardboard box had been ripped apart, so they sat on a soft brown platform of shame atop the wreckage of the cart. He leaned over and picked up one of the cerulean vegetables. It was round, about as big as his head, and had leafy layers that could be peeled off from it. It almost resembled a—

“My cabbages!” The Olkari man who had been pushing the cart lamented. Lance opened his mouth to apologize, but instead a giggle escaped his lips. When he went to try again, another bubble of laughter floated to the surface, stronger than the first.

As Lance began to lose his composure, the lingering adrenaline coursing through his body like laughing gas, Laith and Keith joined in, and they were laughing like they’d just heard the best joke ever told. Lance was doubled over, clutching at his aching stomach and kicking his legs as Laith leaned into his side, singing with joyous laughter.

And amidst the chaos of all the laughter and confused murmuring from the Olkari bystanders, Lance made the mistake of turning his gaze towards his two fellow passengers.

A bright, warm light flooded his senses like the first wave of Varadero summer air hot against his skin cooled by the air conditioning inside. He saw Laith’s head tilted back, his small hands clutching at his sides with his fingers tangling into the fabric of his jacket— _Lance’s_ jacket. His dark brown curls were piled messily atop his pale head in a soft windblown disarray, a few corkscrews drifting in front of his face and framing the faint freckles that dotted his pink cheeks. Every once in a while, he’d manage to open his eyes through his fits of laughter, but one glance at the squashed blue cabbages would have them scrunching up in tearful laughter all over again. The small flickers of lilac that Lance could see between his thick brown eyelashes were like kindling to the flames inside his heart, a raging emotion being stoked brighter and brighter.

In an instant, Lance realized that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect this little boy.

There had been times before, just like this, where he’d felt a hot orange flicker of some fierce emotion that fell out of him in the form of protectiveness. He’d felt little nibbles of this roaring, raging ferociousness that now consumed his entire chest. But he hadn’t yet felt the fulness of it. This was a Papa’s love.

And Keith, oh Keith.

Keith was beautiful. In every single way.

And seeing him laugh so unrestrainedly, watching tears gather in his radiantly delighted eyes, noticing the way his nose scrunched up and hearing the little snorts he made between each gasping breath—it _did_ things to Lance. It made his heart’s flame increase tenfold. This was—this was _love._

Lance had been trying his goddamned hardest to ignore the fleeting feelings of caring towards their Black paladin. He really had. It wasn’t because he was necessarily _opposed_ to having feelings for Keith. He’d always sort of known that he wasn’t completely straight, and he’d always sort of known that he wouldn’t mind kissing those full pink lips that used to spit taunting challenges at him during training sessions. But it was always based in a deep knowledge of hypotheticals. Those desires were in the same areas of morbid curiosity in his brain as his wonders of how Mermaids did the _do_ or how it would feel to eat lava.

And now, with Laith here, Lance didn’t _want_ to like Keith. Because if he only starts to fall for him now that proof of their compatibility has shown up, is it even real? Does he actually have romantic feelings for Keith or does he just feel like he _should_ because now they have a child? Feelings developed now, he figures, shouldn’t be trusted as true feelings. He shouldn’t try to rush the future, or else he might just fuck it up and risk losing the possibility.

Lance’s heart jumping the gun could be the reason for Laith’s inexistence in this reality.

The thought of never seeing him again—of practically _killing_ him—tears a deep searing black hole inside his stomach.

But Lance doesn’t know if he can keep trying to ignore the way Keith makes him feel. With every glance in his direction, each subtle electric touch, each faint emo tune Lance will sometimes notice him humming when he’s lost in thought, Lance falls deeper and deeper and deeper.

“Hi Laith,” Lance manages through a catch in his throat. If Laith notices the gruff way his voice had come out, he doesn’t point it out. Instead he casts his gaze over the rustling leaves of the forest, a silent invitation for Lance to release any walls he may have put up for Laith’s presence. It’s as if to say, _it’s okay, it’s just me. You don’t have to pretend right now._ Lance sighs and tilts his head back to gaze up at the deep inky sky.

Dark, deep blue. It stretches out overhead like a sheet of thick black ice he doesn’t dare reach out to try to penetrate, knowing that his hand will come back having made contact with absolutely nothing, and he’ll be reminded of exactly how far away and yet how immediately near that endless sky really is.

Dark, deep blue, suddenly torn in two. A white hot gash sears across his vision and he lets out a strangled gasp as his mind becomes blank with heat and pain. Blistering heat ripples across the expanse of his back in the space of a second, but it feels like hours that he’s trapped under the influence of the phantoms inside his scar’s muscle memory.

Once the pain dissipates, he’s lying curled on his side, spasms jerking his fingers and legs in startled movements. He blinks away the stinging blur clouding his vision and winces through the ringing in his ears to find someone’s gently rubbing his back. Becoming more aware, Lance feels Laith’s hands running along the widest part of his scar, gently singing a song that feels familiar. He just can’t quite place his finger on it.

“... _colita de rana,_ ” Laith murmurs, “ _si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana._ ”

“Is that… _Sana sana?_ ” Lance tries to ask, but it comes out in a garbled groan.

“Shh, it’s okay. The same thing used to happen to Papa’s scar. It gets better, though. I promise,” Laith says quietly, still rubbing Lance’s back. He doesn’t sing the rhyme again, but he starts humming the tune, and if Lance closes his eyes it’s almost like he’s back home, lying in bed because he caught a cold rather than curling up on a hard alien rooftop being plagued by a scar that refuses to stop hurting.

“What, are you my Mama?” Lance teases after a moment. The pain is gone almost as quickly as it came, leaving him with an empty sensation as if he’d imagined the whole thing.

“Sure thing kiddo,” Laith snorts, withdrawing his hand from Lance’s back. “Just find me some VapoRub and you’ll be all set.”

“ _God,_ VapoRub! I forgot about that stuff! Mama thought it was some sort of miracle healing potion—I don’t still use that, in the future I mean. Do I?” Lance asks, rubbing his face. Just the mention of the name is enough to make him smell the damned stuff. Even from thousands of light years away, Vicks VapoRub has a tight grip on his guts.

“Sure do,” Laith chuckles. “Where do you think I learned it from?”

Lance laughs at that, and Laith joins in until a natural, companionable silence rests over the two of them for a few moments.

“You said it gets better?” Lance asks hesitantly. He’d hoped that maybe it was a figment of his imagination, or that he was just being dramatic, but from the sounds of it he’s still plagued by the same phantoms even twenty years into the future.

“Yeah, completely. Usually it’ll just jolt, like a static shock, but every once in a while it’ll be stronger. But the incidents are far and between, just a couple bigger ones a year and one or two shocks a month. And Papa has always said that even the worst ones in my time are a million times less painful than the ones you felt… now…” Laith trails off with a wince. “I realize that probably isn’t very comforting right now,” he says apologetically, and Lance chuckles dryly.

“ _Me resbala_. I’m a tough cookie,” Lance jokes, pounding his chest a few times before flashing Laith a crooked grin. To Lance’s surprise, Laith doesn’t return it with a sarcastic joke or a playful smirk. Instead he gives Lance the slightest of smiles—so soft that Lance might’ve missed it if he wasn’t paying attention.

“Don’t I know it,” Laith says meaningfully, a strange amount of power behind the gentle words. Lance doesn’t quite know what to say—per the norm, when it comes to Laith—so he reaches out and clasps a hand over the boy’s shoulder, trying for a grateful and reassuring smile. He hopes it doesn’t look as much like an awkward grimace as it feels on his face.

“You know,” Laith says suddenly, eyes wandering back over to the forest. Under the light of the moon the waxy leaves appear to almost glow from a light of their own. “It’s weird being out here. I mean, _here._ On Olkarion.”

“How so?” Lance asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean, look at this!” Laith says emphatically, his hands shooting out to gesture at the planet around them. “I’m sitting on an _Olkari structure_ surrounded by _native Oklari_ who have never been to Earth before. This is where half the history books take place, and I’m just chilling with the teenage team Voltron, not even halfway through the war, and I’m _here._ ” He looks over at Lance imploringly, as if Lance is supposed to understand exactly what the younger boy is saying.

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow. Do you… not like it here? Would you rather we stayed on a neighboring planet that’s less crowded? I don’t know if they really need us around anymore so I’m sure we could arrange something for—”

“No! That’s not—I mean, thank you for thinking of me, but no. What I mean is…” Laith looks down at his hands, which he’s dropped almost defeatedly into his lap, turning them around and scrutinizing every last nook and cranny within his fingers as if searching for something. “I guess, I never really connected all that carnage and horror and adventure and joy and excitement and darkness and loneliness and hopelessness and fear and love and discovery and… well… _war_ to the people who are my family. Y’know? I mean, I know _logically_ that Dad and Papa and Hunkle and everyone I know and love were the people on the posters. I _know_ that you guys did everything that it says in the movies and the books and the TV shows. It’s not like I was never taught what all you went through. It’s just that, I hadn’t ever seen that. I’ve never seen Dad act like the cold emotionless Keith Kogane. I’ve never watched Granny Gremlin work for 73 hours straight out of sheer desperation like Pidge Holt always did. I’ve never seen Papa... bleed… and almost die right before me like you, Lance McClain did.

“I think my parents tried their best to keep me away from all that stuff. That’s why I never was allowed to go with them to check out the static reality or test any new patching devices. I’ve had the absolute joy of being raised the way that I did. I’m not complaining about that, not at all. It’s just, now that I’m here and I’m seeing all this stuff in real life, I’m finally appreciating what you guys did. What you’re going to do. Life hasn’t been easy for you guys, and that didn’t really connect with my head until now.”

Laith sniffles, so Lance silently shifts closer and winds his arms around the smaller boy, one arm twisting around the back of his head to gently pet his hair and cheeks, while the other guides him by the back deeper into Lance’s embrace. Laith sniffs and returns the hug in full, arms snaking around Lance’s back and gripping gently at his shoulders. Lance doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

They remain like that for a time, it could have been an entire hour for all Lance knows. But once Laith withdraws from the embrace, he’s smiling again and his breathing has stilled down. He wipes his eyes and stands up, holding his hand out for Lance to follow suit.

“It’s okay, I think I’m gonna stay here for a bit longer,” Lance explains with an apologetic smile. Laith shrugs and returns his hand to his pocket.

“Alright. Don’t stay out too late, though,” he cautions, walking towards the door that leads down from the roof. Lance snorts.

“Sure thing Mama,” he says sarcastically.

“Later, kiddo.” Laith teases. The sound of the metal door being clicked and swung open fills the night, but Lance doesn’t hear it close. He turns back to see Laith standing in the doorway, eyebrows scrunched up in thought. Finally he looks up and meets eyes with Lance, battles being fought in their purple depths. “And hey, ask Keith about what to do with your scar. The one on his jaw does the same thing from time to time—it must be some weird Galra tech thing, I don’t know. But it’s worth asking.”

Lance frowns. Going to Keith about his scar is sort of the last thing he wants to do right now, especially given his complicated emotions towards the man that really aren’t that complicated at all, he’s just refusing to acknowledge them. “Okay, I’ll think about it. Thanks, Laith.”

“No problem,” Laith responds, and he smiles, but it looks uncertain. As if he isn’t sure if bringing up Keith’s scar was the right idea. Lance doesn’t have much more time to unpack it, however, because Laith ducks into the doorframe and disappears from sight, the click of the door closing accompanying the pattering of his retreating footsteps.

Lance turns back to the endless foliage, trying not to think about how familiar that uncertain smile had looked.

Trying not to think about the beautiful pale face he’d seen it on before.

◊◊◊

The ride to Olkari had been tense for everyone, but Pidge noticed it on Allura the most. It’s obvious that while the Princess loathes Lotor for what he’s done to the Altean people, she still harbors some unwanted feelings for him.

Pidge doesn’t blame her. Through their work on Lotor’s ship and their combined study of the Altean alchemic craft, they’d grown extremely close. Close enough that Allura is certain that she knows his innermost desires.

She declined to elaborate the reasons behind her certainty, only saying that she knew what to do and they should just trust her. Of course they all trusted her—she was the Princess behind the whole Voltron operation after all—but it still made Pidge and everyone else nervous. Trust is a lot harder to rely on than confirmation, and Allura was refusing to explain what she would do to lure Lotor out. Pidge has been scanning through the hundreds of thousands of pages of quintessence research for the past few days, so she knows better than anyone that quintessence can’t be fooled twice, especially if the host it has taken over had complex intentions when it transmuted into pure energy. Given the fact that no one has managed to guess Lotor’s intention (aside from Allura) means that it’s probably extremely complicated. Or, who knows, maybe it’s stupidly simple and they just hadn’t considered that maybe the evil mastermind behind Voltron’s near-downfall just wanted one last taste of those delicious Silkirosian popsicles. Pidge makes a mental note to investigate food planets Lotor frequented while he was still alive.

It’s hard thinking of Lotor as _Lotor._ Especially now that they know that he’s just trapped quintessence. In a sense, he and his spirit still exist, but he’s no longer in control. He’s just… well, he’s just a Beast. A hunger, endlessly wanting and needing but never getting. All he has left is destruction.

Allura growls frustratedly, tearing Pidge from her thoughts abruptly and almost causing her to drop her tablet. She whirls around and sees Allura, brows furrowed and eyes squeezed shut, teeth clenched together in a tight, grinding line. Her hands are pressed against the hull of the ship and they’re crackling and flickering with blue Altean energy, but the light keeps dying down. Pidge has never seen the Alchemy react like that before.

After one last failed attempt to keep the light alive, Allura curls her fingers into fists and punches the metal with a frustrated grunt, only to have it morph into a pained squeal as she clutches at the aching hand. Pidge tries but fails to stifle a giggle, and Allura turns to glare in her direction.

“Sorry, sorry. It just was funny how you went from >:( to [:0 in like, a second,” Pidge apologizes. If there’s one thing she’s learned about Allura while being on team Voltron, it’s _do. Not. Anger. Princess. Under. Any. Circumstances._

Allura frowns and tilts her head. “How did you say that with your mouth?” she asks.

“Doesn’t matter,” Pidge waves her hand nonchalantly, and after a couple more seconds of confused thought processing, Allura shrugs and turns back to the metal exterior of the work-in-progress ship.

Pidge sighs. “Hey, Allura?” she asks, turning reluctantly to the Princess who has her hands hovering over the metal, not yet conjuring the Alchemic energy.

“Yes Pidge?” Allura responds. Pidge kicks at the floor of the metal platform they’re working on, not making eye contact. Finally she sighs frustratedly and looks up at the once again perplexed Princess, determination hardening her features.

“Look. I’m not the best at like, ~ _emotional stuff_ ~ but I just want to let you know that I’m… I’m here for you, okay? I know that all this Lotor and Beast junk has been super hard on you, and I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now, but I do know what it’s like to lose someone you care—er, _cared_ —about. So, if you ever wanna like, talk or anything like that, I’m always here.” Pidge sighs, glancing up at the Princess almost fearfully.

Allura’s shocked expression melts into a softer, fonder one as she smiles and touches Pidge’s hand. “Thank you,” she replies, “I really appreciate that, Pidge.”

“Yeah, it’s like, whatever. Don’t worry about it. I’m jus tryna help a homie out, you know how it is,” Pidge says nonchalantly, shrugging sharply and turning back to her tablet only to realize that she can’t remember what she was trying to do on it.

Beside her, Allura shakes her head bewilderedly. “I will never understand your human slang,” she murmurs. Then she stands up a bit straighter, and her hands start fidgeting with the strands of hair that have fallen from her bun. “And, Pidge? I was wondering if maybe—once we’re done with construction for the day, of course—you’d want to come with me and poke around the marketplace?” She asks. “I’ve been meaning to go visit this one lounge store that had some very soft-looking pillows in the windows. We could make a sleepover out of it and… talk. If you’d like.”

Pidge looks up from her tablet and smiles. “That sounds great, Princess. I’d love to!”

“Excellent!” Allura beams. “I’m looking forward to it <3”

“Hey, you figured it out!” Pidge congratulates.

“HOW THE QUIZNAK DID I DO THAT?!” Allura cries, panic edging her voice.

“You’ll get used to it :3” Pidge replies with a shrug, then gets back to work on her tablet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH SHIT I FORGOT TRANSLATIONS  
> Sana sana, colita de rana is a song sung by many Spanish-speaking mothers as a way to soothe children’s boo-boos or help them feel better when they’re sick. It’s sort of how Americans (and maybe others? Idk how universal this is) “kiss it better” when a kid gets a bruise, kissing the place they hurt and pretending that made it better.   
> “Me resbala” — Cuban-specific Spanish slang meaning “I don’t care,” or “it doesn’t matter.” Directly translates to “It slides off me.”  
> I think that’s all of them? Let me know if I missed something. Thanks!


End file.
